My Father's Secrets
by RandomDarkness
Summary: Bo hurries back to Australia in a flap after the Battle of Bon Temps -see 'Belong to you'-, Sookie and Eric in tow. Between organised crime and a political conspiracy, she'll reveal a truth kept secret for 500 years. Lemons.
1. The Merry Old Land of OZ 01

**Note: In keeping with a theme I've had going lately, this story is being re-edited and reposted. Unlike 'Belong to You' which was reposted as 'To Belong to You' (which you should REALLY read before reading this as that's where the OCs are introduced) this is simply being reposted under the original title. The reworking is finished, a chapter a day will go up until we're up to date and then I'll follow it through to the end. Thank you to everyone who followed the Belong to You story all the way to this point, I hope you stick with me to the end!**

"I am not wearing that," Eric crossed his arms over his bare chest and glared daggers at Pam, who was holding up a lime green suit.

"It's modern, the colour will hide the fact that you have neglected your hair, and"

"And it's hideous."

"I will not allow you to go on television and embarrass me!" Pam snapped in irritation. For the last two hours she had used her recent incarceration to wring a number of concessions from Eric that she'd have had no hope of achieving under normal circumstances, but it seemed to Sookie, who was in the corner trying not to laugh, that Pam had used up most of her points.

"You couldn't get me into that thing in the seventies and you certainly aren't getting me into it now!"

"Well what do you suggest then? A black cape? You're supposed to look personable!" She huffed and crossed her own arms, glaring right back at him petulantly.

"Can I try...?" Sookie asked, raising her hand as though she were back in grade school.

Eric's eyes brightened and Pam huffed even more. "I deliver myself completely into your power. Protect me from _that_." He gestured rudely at the suit.

"Fine," Pam grumbled, folding the suit over her arm.

Sookie nibbled on the knuckle of her thumb as she looked through the comically large wardrobe. "I've never seen you wear most of this stuff,"

"Pam is a shopoholic," He sank down into a chair and put his feet up on the little table, "she enjoys 'styling' me."

"Oh my gosh," she giggled, grabbing the sleeve of something yellow.

"Just... please. Dress me, so we can get out of here, get this bureaucratic shit over with, then come home, so you can undress me again." His eyebrows waggled at her and she blushed. "You know my face almost feels warm when you do that."

Sookie touched her cheek and then let her hand drop. "Is it weird...? Havin' me jus' floatin' around in there?"

"Sometimes I hardly notice, if you're calm or bored, then what ever I am doing takes up most of my attention... When _I _am calm and bored, and you are busy, then it can be most diverting." His grin was positively filthy and Sookie got the distinct impression he was referring to any number of late night activities she may or may not have done just before going to sleep. He was up and across the room at her side by the time she'd followed that thought through to the end and was starting to get angry with him. "When you're fucking me," he breathed against her neck, "then it is _very_ diverting."

"Not now Pam, I don't have time to play tonight, ERIC!"Bo's voice came through clearly as she barged in and Eric grunted in irritation and head-butted the edge of the wardrobe, leaving his forehead pressed against it.

"Your timing is,"

"Unavoidable. Shirt, now." She closed the door, pointedly leaving Pam on the outside and looked at Sookie speculatively. "Can you hear vampires?"

"I, um... no..."

"Can't have everything...My area is exploding and I don't believe it's a coincidence! Fuck," She sat in the chair Eric had just vacated and glared at no one in particular. "He's left me in a fine fucking mess now, and he doesn't have to deal with it, noooo he doesn't have to explain shit. He's dead, now it's just me with a big pile of shit on a continent _made_ of sunlight. Fuck!"

"What the hell are you taking about?" Eric crouched next to her and gabbed her hands squeezing them hard. "Calm down, and talk to me. What's happening?"

She took a deep breath and flopped back in the chair. "My area has exploded and the shit's spattered everywhere. No one gives Australia that much attention, it's not worth it. They're provoking me, trying to get me to give away where he is and..." She screamed angrily and kicked the chair out from under herself, launching and and stalking back and forth across the room. "I need you to come back with me, Eric. I've got shit piling up on all sides and Godric's gone. He's fucking gone and no one else knows!"

"Knows what?" Sookie blurted but Eric shot her a warning look.

Bo turned her eyes to Sookie, as though just remembering she was there. "It's all a lie," she said, half hysterically, giving a guilty little giggle. "Oh Nan Flanagan's a smart one, she's got her finger on the fucking pulse, but even she's not sure. Come with me, to Sydney." She seemed to clamp down on herself then, push aside whatever madness it was that threatened to undo her and reached for Sookie's hand, taking it in both of her own and begging with her eyes, "Come with me, and I will tell you the biggest secret in the world."

Eric was at the door a moment later whispering to Pam, "Call the airline, get two coffin's ready, and book..."

"There is already a van parked out the front," Pam told him, affecting her usual frustrated expression, though Eric could see right through it. Pam was scared.

"We'll leave immediately. Watch the Bar. Negotiate with Isabel for what ever help you might need and tell Flanagan something came up."

"She'll pitch a fit."

"Quite likely. Tell her Sookie and I have gone to Australia with Bodicea on the order of a higher authority." Eric told her firmly.

"Eric... is it a good idea to lie about something like that?" She asked in Swedish.

"I'm not convinced it is a lie. Do as I say." When he looked back, Bo was pacing again, fidgety and manic. "Bodicea!" He said firmly, getting in her way and grabbing her shoulders. "Stop... get in the van. We can talk about it when we get there."

"Do you trust me, brother?" She asked, suddenly the foot and a half of height difference made her seem tiny, even with her broad shoulders. Her brown eyes looked black in the less than adequate light and Sookie thought she seemed incredibly sad.

"Of course,"

"If you're not careful, when this is over... you'll never trust anyone again."

Sookie didn't even have a passport! Eric and Bo had assured her that it'd been taken care of but she still had images in her head of being detained by some huge, tanned, muscle bound guy who talked too fast and thought she sounded like a hick. Even worse, because they'd be landing during the day thanks to crossing the planet, her undead companions were sealed up safely in the bowels of the plane, and she was all alone, admittedly in first class, but still, all alone.

"We should be starting our descent in about an hour. How are you doing?" A bright faced waitress asked as she paused beside her with a little trolley.

"Oh, I'm fine, thank you. I guess I'm jus' a nervous flyer."

"Would you like some water?" The bright faced woman lent down and whispered conspiratorially, "Or maybe some orange juice with a dash of vodka?"

"Oh I couldn't, I'm a two pot screamer an'... well... isn' it illegal to be drunk on a plane?" She asked.

"Technically," the stewardess said, handing over an orange juice and a tiny vodka bottle, "but this is first class honey. No one's looking, just don't throw up."

Sookie shared her friendly, secretive little giggle and accepted the drink, making it up weak for herself. Everything would be fine. She had little to no idea how she'd been caught up in all this, the whole business was bizarre. Bo hadn't really explained anything to them in the van on the way to the airport, something about not wanting to be heard. Eric apparently bought that because he carefully kept Sookie busy, asking her about her papers, who she needed to contact and so on until they arrived. All the while Bo had stared out through the heavily tinted windows as the night sped by. Sookie wondered how flying into the sun would affect vampires, or if they got jet lag, or if they'd lain down there for most of the trip talking quietly from the inside of their coffins...

Below, before the sickness caught up with them, Eric had said "you want to tell me, I know you do,"

"I do," Her voice had come back through the darkness. "But I don't want to hide in here while I confess. That's cowardly. I'll tell you to your face."

"I have known you for seven hundred years, Bodicea. I'm deeply concerned by what could be upsetting you this much..."

"Seven hundred years... God we're so old." He heard her groan and laughed softly.

"You are today, every inch the princess we found beside the old road... among the bodies of her attackers... that woman has never been afraid of anything,"

_"Blood," Eric sniffed it on the air. Blood and death, under it, floating delicately all around him... the scent of near-death._

_"There," Godric moved along the road, his feet barely touching the dirt. Eric could see a rapidly dying fire through the trees and twisted silhouettes he was sure were bodies. "Romans."_

_Four men in the dress of the legion, deserters from the look of the camp. Disorganised... Stupid. In their midst, half covered by the body of her last victim, lay their killer._

_"Eric," Godric called softly, gesturing down at the young woman, run through with a gladius and rapidly bleeding out._

_"Celt," the Viking said carefully. "Stupid bastard's tried to take her. They're all like this. Can't be had." Eric winked at him, "My people tried for years, cattle, treasure, sure... don't bother with the women. It is why they're still short." He grinned._

_Godric waved him off in irritation as he knelt by the girl. He shoved the body off that covered her, then smoothed her hair back. "Can you hear me?"_

_"Gwydion...?" she gasped, blood flecking on her lips as she reached for him._

_Godric looked to Eric, his eyebrow raised. "She thinks you are her warrior god." The viking told him._

_"I am Godric," the girl looked like she might cry but bit her lip hard to hold it in."You are dying."_

_"They died first," she hissed fiercely and Godric chuckled softly, stroking her hair again._

_"That they did," Godric glanced up at Eric again, his head tilted to the side, seeking his opinion. Eric stared down at the dying girl and held his hands up, backing away into the night... this was a private business. "Are you afraid?"_

_"Yes," she admitted, looking away to hide her guilt, but Godric turned her back to face him._

_"I can keep you here... with me. What do you want?"_

_"To stay," she coughed, trying to sit up._

_"Forever...?"_

_"Are you Gwydion?" She asked, her eyes wide, but her hands clutched at his arms desperately._

_"No... I am something else..."_

"That woman is a master of faking it, brother. I thought Godric was a god... I think I believed that for a long time. I'd do anything he asked, ha," she laughed, a little bitterly and Eric heard her hit the back of her head against the coffin, "if he appeared now, I still would. I've lied to my brother, for two hundred years... I'm ashamed Eric."

"We both worshipped him,Bo. Had he asked, I would have lied to you until my tongue turned black." He paused then, and Bo wondered if he was going to leave it there. "I would have had to trust that you would forgive me."

"Thank you..."

By the time the plane landed at the Sydney airport, Sookie had managed to down four of the stewardesses little vodka and orange cocktails and was feeling pretty happy. Surprisingly, the airport wasn't the maze she'd been expecting, but was instead just a two kilometer long run of terminals with the security and exit at one end. She hadn't had time to pack anything, so the business of getting out was pretty straight forward, even if she was a little tipsy. To her surprise, on the other side of the security gates, was a little man holding a sign with her name on it.

As she approached him she couldn't help but think Lafayette would have loved him. He was thin as a rail with slightly effeminately flared hips, accentuated by the fact that he wore a pair of jeans that had obviously come from a girls store. His shirt, likewise, looked like it was probably a woman's, a gentle tan with tiny flared sleeves and the whole business was capped off with a pair of orange rimmed sunglasses that Elton John would have been proud of. She gave the tiny man a little wave and hurried over.

"Sookie Stackhouse?" He asked, letting the sign drop to his side so he could hold out his hand.

She took it, still feeling the buzz of the booze, and shook it a little more vigorously than she might have otherwise. "That's right, where do ya go to pick up your coffin's around here?" She couldn't believe she'd said that, but other than a few strange looks, no one paid her any mind.

"I'm Winston... most people call me Tony." He laughed at her and folded up his sign and shoved it into a leather satchel. "And we go get them around the back. Everything's been taken care of, and we've got about three hours before sunset." He clapped his hands together and nodded towards the door. "C'mon. I'll take you somewhere you can change... and maybe top up. Tonight's going to be a little mad."

"How do you mean?" She hurried along after him.

"We're in a bit of a mess at the moment." He confessed, "See, Bo's been here since the beginning, of my country I mean. She arrived in 1901 for federation. As sheriff she's been in our politics up to her dead little eyeballs for two hundred years. Now we've had what you might call a bit of a coup in the last few days, huge mess. Our prime minister's got the chop and his deputy's taken over. "

Sookie looked around curiously at everyone, no one seemed particularly worried. It just looked like an air port. "But... nothing's happening..."

"Hmm? This isn't Zimbabwe, Sookie. I didn't mean to give you the impression there was violence in the streets or anything. We're just in a bit of a political pickle, that's all. Gillard - that's our new prime minister, is in spastic spin mode. She's got to call an election like, last week, the opposition is all over it like flies on shit and to be perfectly honest, from our point of view, they're all incompetent."

"Wait, your prime minister is a woman?" Sookie asked.

"For now. There'll be an election in the next three months, then we'll see how the shit falls."

"And Bo is a member of your parliament?"

"Not exactly." Winston ushered her into a dark tinted SUV while two fairly burly looking men hitched a small airport trailer containing two unconscious vampires to the back. "Things are a little different here. Technically speaking Bo holds a seat on the Senate that's been reserved for the sheriff of Oceania. That's here, new Zealand and a decent chunk of Papua and Indonesia... though that bit's pretty recent. There was some shit up there with the natives and... never mind. Long story. Anyway, Bo isn't an elected official which... well let's just say some things have had to be finagled so no ones nose gets out of joint."

"I don't understand any of that..." Sookie confessed.

"That's OK, not many people do really. The punch line is that the government has been used to taking under the table advice from Bo on various unusual matters for a very long time and for some reason, Gillard has decided she's not interested in continuing the deal." As Winston pulled away, Sookie could see the cityscape of Sydney appear before her in a tangle of buildings and overpasses that easily rivalled Dallas. "Have you ever been here before?"

Sookie shook her head. "Up until a year or so ago, I'd never been anywhere... now I got vampires dragin' me all over the world!"

"That's usually how it happens. All or nothing. C'mon, I'll take us over the bridge." He indicated and changed lanes through a mass of traffic, hardly even glancing over before shifting the SUV. "How'd you end up with Northman?"

"I... I really don't know."

Winston chuckled. "Bo said he's high maintenance, but one hell of a sex machine." Sookie blushed helplessly and looked off out the window to try to hide it. "Hey, just us girls here. Relax."

"I thought human companions were usually... well... you know," She glanced over at Winston, who was grinning impishly. "You do... know? Right?"

"Yeah I know. And no, we're not." He shrugged, leaning casually back it seemed he dropped some of his flamboyant persona. "Bo probably saved my life." He said seriously. "I was an angry little faggot with a grudge against just about everything and everyone. I hated myself... and I hated everyone else for making me hate myself. Eventually I was gonna mouth-off at the wrong biker and... well, wind up a twitching stain on the pavement as Bo is so fond of saying. Bo showed me things that were more out there than me,"

"She said, I mean she told Eric that you run things here, when she's away."

"I do," he replied, somewhat proudly. "I'm good at organising things, and I get along well with the vamps. Truth is everyone loves Bo, and even if they didn't, they were hell scared of that guy that made her."

"Godric? But he was so sweet, and gentle!"

Winston laughed, nodding, "I thought so too, you know? Hell, the man opened doors for her, pulled out chairs. He was always perfectly polite, even friendly to me... but the vamps still crap themselves at the mention of his name, even now."

"I guess he was really old, he must've one hell'uv a history." She sighed sadly. "I was there when he died."

"You don't know the half of it." Winston pulled the car around a tight left hand turn and Sookie gasped as the Harbour bridge filled her vision. _'All this bullshit just cuz vampires have a yen for secrets. This is all so fucking stupid, why didn't he just __**tell**_ _them?'_

"Tell them what?" Sookie asked, without realising she'd heard his mind and not his mouth.

"Huh? Fuck, forgot about that. You just stay over there on your side of the car, OK? Bo'll explain everything. Christ she's been itching to explain it to Eric for two hundred years, I'm surprised she's held out this long."

By the time Eric and Bo emerged from their coffins, Winston and Sookie had relaxed on the balcony and were sipping at fruity looking cocktails that smelt of summer and decadence with just a hint of sinful gin. Winston held up his glass and nodded to Bo, who moved past him, ruffling his hair in the process before sitting on the low stone planter opposite them. "You two seem to be getting along well," she said with a weary smile.

"I was just telling Sookie about the time you threw that kangaroo into the harbour because you thought it was the shifter who stole our AC/DC tickets."

Sookie was giggling helplessly into the sleeves of the over sized jumper Winston had lent her to cut the cool sea breeze."It's not as bad as it sounds," Bo assured her, "the stupid thing had run from the street performer who had it assaulting a punching bag. I did save the roo..." Sookie was forced to put her drink on the little table beside her and double over, clutching her stomach.

"You've rendered her speechless," Eric's voice came from behind her, sounding tired but amused. "That's a rare gift."

"All the tourist literature says you have the best adventures in the land of Oz." Bo took a deep breath and nodded towards the door. "You should both come inside. I have Jedda organising a car to take us for a little road trip, but we should talk first." She ushered them back into the apartment, where Winston promptly put his bare feet up on the couch and wriggled his toes, inviting Sookie to take the space left at the end, which she did.

"How much do you know about the vampire hierarchy, Sookie?" Bo asked her.

"Well, I know there are sheriffs and magisters and Kings and Queens an' such. To be honest I don' know how it all fits together though..."

"That's not really the problem, for right now, let's worry about a single question... do you know who they all answer to?" Bo asked intently.

"Well I... I don' know... I guess I never thought about it."

"Few do, even those who associate closely with us, by and large we encourage this." Bo sat on the coffee table and clasped her hands over her knees. "Above the Kings and Queens, above even the magisters who police them... climb high enough up the ladder and, as always, you'll end up with just one man."

"The Overseer," Eric rumbled softly from where he lent against the wall near Sookie's end of the couch.

"Alright, what's the overseer?" Sookie asked, sure they were all waiting for her question with intense theatricality.

"That depends on who you ask," Bo said carefully. "But the magisters and the Kings and Queens, the great council itself, they all know the overseer is here, in my area. Godric sent him here in 1901, when this nation federated. It was isolated, it was stable and more to the point because we were here at its inception we were in a unique position to shape the way it developed."

"OK, so this overseer lives here. That's the secret? Did someone find out?"

"There have always been rumours, it's why I have always had more sway than the sheriff of such an unimportant area of the world should. I have autonomous control over the largest area of any vampire, even the old monarchs of Europe... but it's a backwater. On the world stage we hardly rate a mention, the overseer is the sole reason that I am listened to." She unclasped her hands, then resettled them, shifting uncomfortably and glancing up at Eric. "Now we come to the great lie..."

Eric scooted Sookie up the couch and sat beside her as Winston tucked his legs up under himself and nodded encouragingly to his best friend. "The truth is, the overseer hasn't exercised, or been interested in exercising any sort of control over his domain in five hundred years."

"What does that mean?" Sookie asked, but Eric was tensing up next to her.

"It means... it means that five hundred years ago, Godric discovered that his maker, the overseer, was having some sort of psychotic break. He couldn't contain his emotions, he was becoming childlike..." She looked up at Eric sadly, "Godric had to protect him... From that time, up until 1901, Godric made every decision attributed to the overseer. After 1901, it was me."

"You?" Eric half stood but Sookie grabbed his arm. "You were behind the revelation? The announcement of our existence to the world?"

"Australia was the great experiment." She said carefully. "Godric planned it that way. I have been an integral part of this country's development. I helped chart its course, and every major politician for two hundred years has been well aware of what I am. All to protect an ancient man who can barely understand what is happening to him."

"The overseer is Godric's maker..." Eric said softly to himself. "He never said. The power he could have wielded,"

"You know as well as I do, he didn't want it. There's more, more that no one outside this room has ever been told, though some have guessed the theory... Godric believed that our existence is tied to the overseer." She stood and began to pace, "the legends all say that if you kill a vampire, all his infected, his progeny, will either die or become as they were. We know of course that this isn't the case. Godric believed that every vampire alive today, can trace their blood back to the overseer. That as the other ancients were killed or met the sun, that our race was whittled down to this single line."

"Are you saying that if someone kills the overseer, every vampire in the world will die?" Sookie gasped.

"I honestly don't know, but Godric thought it was possible, and was afraid enough for our safety that he built the perfect protection for his maker... This country."

"Why you?" Eric asked, his face having become impassive. "Why did he send you here and not me."

"Insurance," She said simply. "In case he was wrong. Should the overseer die, tradition dictates that the oldest vampire of his line replaces him, traced directly through... Godric was his oldest surviving progeny, and you, my brother, are Godric's heir. If the Overseer dies, and it turns out we don't need him to survive, you are his replacement. Godric wouldn't keep you both on the same continent."

"He said we weren't supposed to be here..." Eric breathed, his eyes distant.

"And so he came to believe, I think. But he loved us, and he loved his maker... so he couldn't bring himself to end it all. He just ended himself, at least that's what he wrote in his letter." Bo looked like she wanted to reach out for him, but Eric's face was a twisted mask of confusion and pain warring with worry. "The parliament is turning on me, and the criminal elements are using various supe's for their enforcers. I can't believe its all coincidence, I can't afford to. All our lives could be hanging in the balance."

"Or it could all be nothing." Eric spat in irritation.

"True."


	2. Old Man Young 02

Sookie sat quietly in the back of the SUV, watching as Eric stared out of the window, a million miles away. How had this happened? Was it a week, a year, or a lifetime ago that she'd hated his guts and wanted him dead? He hadn't spoken since the car started, but when Sookie had shifted uncomfortably in her seat at the silence, he'd reached over with one hand and taken hers gently, pulling it over into his lap and holding it there. She'd wished he'd look at her, say something, but a part of her mind knew that he was no more comfortable with the way things had progressed than she was. She wished more than ever that she could hear vampire thoughts... she'd trusted Bill so much, so fast, and had been burned.

"We're almost there," Bo announced from the drivers seat. She'd changed into an outfit reminiscent of the worst kind of angry feminist chick-power suit. A white blouse with a sharp grey corporate style skirt and blazer, of course the two small 9mm pistols concealed beneath it would have had the business world all a flutter. "Try to stay calm. Jedda said he's having a good night but sometimes he's easily upset. If he clamps up we'll be unwinding him for days."

Eric said nothing, but his hand tightened around Sookie's just enough to let her know he wasn't at all comfortable with any of this. He kept a hold of her hand and stayed close to her side as they entered the nondescript official looking building and headed up towards the penthouse. "Godric wasn't really sure what his name was when he was born," Bo was telling them, "he's been called a lot of things, and seems quite happy to answer to anything you care to call him. For the last two hundred years or so, we've called him Adam."

"That's just a trifle cliche don't you think?" Eric said with a sardonically raised eyebrow.

"More than you know," Bo answered him, a small smile playing sadly across her face. "Adam means 'first' in Hebrew, everyone knows that. What they don't tend to know is that it also means 'red'."

The elevator opened and Bo led them to a huge set of double doors guarded by two huge vampires with heavily tattooed faces. "Boys," Bo said, inclining her head to them. They didn't answer but stepped aside and one of them pulled the door open for them. "Maori. Big, scary fuckers. I kinda like them."

"You would," Eric grunted, seeming to be recovering from the worst of his indisposition.

"We understand each other, that's all. It'll be another hundred years before the Maori will forget how to be a warrior people. The Icenii are gone, the Welsh are calm and tranquil except at football time... which I suppose is nice for them, but they're hardly my people any more." She sighed, and looked around the room which seemed an odd juxtaposition of organised and chaotic. The shelves, full of books, were in perfect order, arranged by genre, author and size. The room at large however was a shambles, piles of half read magazines, sketch books and postit notes. "Adam?"

"Bodicea?" A handsome young man, looking to be perhaps twenty five, came out of the kitchen covered in flour. "You're early! I haven't finished the cookies!" He gestures to the couches for everyone to sit, "A pos', isn't it? What would your guests like?"

Eric waved him off, watching him carefully, while Sookie and Winston were brought coke's to sip. "How are you tonight?" Bo asked, sitting on the edge of the coffee table and cupping her warmed true blood between her hands.

"Alright, I think," he smiled somewhat apologetically to the others. "I can't tell though, usually, until after... it always seems to me like I'm fine." He sat next to Bo when she held out her arm and let her sling it around his shoulders. "I don't think I can help though. I've been trying and... it's just not there today."

Eric looked questioningly at them and Bo, patting Adam's shoulder, answered his silent question. "Sometimes Adam can remember things. Not everything, but... that's what all this is," she gestured around to the sketch pads and scribbled notes. "Whenever he remembers anything, he draws it or writes it down."

"It never stays..." Adam said sadly, "I can remember what it felt like to remember, but I can't remember what I remembered," he looked up sheepishly, "that was a bit rambling wasn't it? Sorry,"

"It's alright, I just wanted to bring them here to meet you before Jedda takes you out." She squeezed his shoulders gently and he let his head fall sideways onto her shoulder.

"Thank you for letting me go. I know no one likes it..." He said, his eyes fluttering shut seemingly in the bliss of physical contact with another person.

"Technically speaking, you're in charge." She told him with a smile, but he just made a face. "Besides, you're always better after." She looked up at Eric, "Adam has a standing appointment with Westmeade children's hospital on the nights when he's well. He... assists with their worst cases."

"He does what?" Eric half stood, but Sookie was still holding his hand so he couldn't finish the motion without letting go, which he seemed reluctant to do. "You're risking his exposure..."

"I want to help," Adam started, but Eric cut him off.

"And if you die? If you're necessary for our survival and you die on a foolish quest to save every human child? You'll kill us all!"

"You don't know that," Adam said softly.

"But you do." Eric lent forward staring intensely at the young man's face. "You know. In there somewhere, you know."

"Eric," Bo hissed in warning, but Adam put a hand on her thigh gently.

"I'm not sure I DO know," he said softly, "I think there used to be others... others like me, but they seem to be gone now. I think everyone out there now IS part of me but," He shrugged and started fiddling with one of his sketch books. "I don't know what that means. I can barely piece together last week and you want me to remember something I knew twelve thousand years ago?"

"Twelve thousand... how old _are_ you?" Sookie asked in awe.

Adam looked at her, and she was struck by the innocence in his eyes. "I can remember walking along the banks of the black sea... there were twelve cities around it, thousands of people, before the waters came."

"We guided a number of archaeological teams to the black sea a few years ago," Bo told them, "on Adam's directions. Those cities are there. Under the water... drowned at the end of the last great ice age when the black sea broke its banks and expanded permanently. That was twelve thousand years ago, so we know he's at least that old."

Sookie stared at him, "that's amazing..."

"You smell lovely," Adam said distractedly, "like the sun."

Sookie blushed but Eric growled defensively. Bo shook her head, "Adam hasn't fed on a human, even a willing one, in a long time Eric." There was a knock at the door and Jedda popped her head in, her bright blue eyes flitting about as though they had lives of their own. "Oh, time for you to go." Bo gently nudged him up.

"You'll check my cookies? In about ten minutes." Adam told her nervously as he made his way to the door.

"Course I will. Winston and Sookie can test them for you."

Adam smiled brightly and took Jedda's offered hand. They embraced briefly and then left without a word. Bo let out a breath and relaxed back, as though being in Adam's presence was a pain that forced her to concentrate in order to control it. "You see how he is."

"Helpless." Eric grunted. "Can he defend himself at all?"

"We don't think so. But it's hard to tell, if he had too, maybe? He can run at least, good lord he's fast." She tidied up the table absently piling everything neatly. "He has good days and bad days, sometimes he has days I can't even categorise!" She looked up at Eric, her eyes tinted pink by her unshed tears. "Once, last year, he stood at the window looking out on the city and told me he could remember everything. He stood taller, he was powerful and strong and then... a heartbeat later, it was gone. He couldn't even remember saying it..."

Winston moved to her side and wrapped his arms around her gently, pulling her against his chest and pressing his cheek into her hair. Eric watched the display dispassionately, unable to see that it was no different to his own desperate grip on Sookie's hand. The small, thin human was calm, but his eyes held authority when he looked at Eric, his expression a clear warning not to push it. "Sookie, would you turn off the oven please," he said as though nothing was wrong. "Eric, gather up that pile over there, it's everything I've managed to put together that might be relevant." He gestured to a huge box of scribbles and sketches.

Bo still hadn't moved, and Eric raised his eyebrow in dangerous amusement at being ordered about by a human. "Just get the box, big man." Winston said, "I don't have enough testosterone to get into a pissing contest with you," Sookie, who was already moving towards the kitchen, was both frightened and impressed by Winston's disregard for Eric's well known stare.

"You walk a dangerous line, little man," Eric growled, still not moving.

"And I do it in sexy jeans. Just get the damn box so we can get out of here." Winston stood, an arm around Bo's shoulders and led her towards the door.

"Please, Eric, just help without arguing," she mumbled as the doors were pulled open for them by the massive guards outside.

Sookie came back to find Eric easily lifting the box of files and frowning in concern at Bo's retreating back. She'd never been weak, never, and yet now a human led her around by the hand. He wasn't sure what irritated him more, the idea that she'd turn to a human at all, or that she'd allow him to act for her instead of asking her brother to do it.

"Eric," Sookie said softly and he looked down at her, trying to modulate the irritation on his face. "Sometimes, a girl just wants her fairy," she said, putting her hand on his arm. "There're things about bein' a girl that straight men, even brother's, jus' can't understand. You gotta learn not to take everything so personal, you'll jus' make everyone miserable."

Bo had let Winston take the wheel without a word. Something about the whole experience of watching her cave in on herself made the world seem surreal to Sookie. Bo had seemed so unconquerable at the battle of Bon Temps, a manic Amazon who couldn't be stopped. Maybe that was it, Sookie reflected, didn't every manic have to have a come down? Nauseating lows to match the dizzying highs. The truth was that Bo understood battle, she knew about blood and adrenalin and leading men for hopeless causes. She did not, however, understand the subtle complexities of her nightly battle with the overseer's illness. It was a tricksy thing, sometimes, in her darker moments, she became convinced it was alive. It taunted her and her grand-maker with tantalising hints of sanity only to yank it all back a moment later.

She had thought, in her optimism, that when Eric finally came to Australia, as she'd always known he would, that he would somehow fix everything. A little girl's endless faith in her older brother's abilities... only he wasn't fixing anything. He was sitting in the back of the car, glaring bloody murder out of the window and even his human couldn't seem to bring him out of it.

"Krispy Kreme." Winston announced, suddenly veering the car violently to the left and hitting the accelerator, all intent focused on the starkly illuminated fast food venue. Eric growled as the massive box of Adam's scribbles nearly upended itself all over him. "Can it, big-foot. It is a crime against God and man to drive past a Krispy Kreme without getting chocolate double glazed dough nuts with rainbow sprinkles."

The blond vampire looked like he might start a full blown argument over it, until Sookie reached over and touched his arm. "I am kinda hungry, Eric..." Eric turned his irritated glare on her and it was more than Sookie could handle. "Hey! I'm only here because _you_ brought me here, I don' even remember you _asking_ me if I wanted to come! If you aren't gonna act like a decent person the least you can do is feed me!"

"Sookie..."

"Don't 'Sookie' me, damn it! God, Bill was _always_ doing that. I'm not askin' you to ride in on a white horse an' save the fuckin' day. Just shut up and let the humans eat some damn dough nuts. How hard is that?" Winston chuckled under his breath from the front seat.

"This hasn't exactly been a slow week for me," Eric started, only to be cut of as she flailed and slapped him hard in the chest.

"Slow... slow week! Your a thousand years old! You kill people all the time, keep them locked in your creepy ass basement, you manipulate everyone! My fiance turned out to be someone I don't even know, my town is probably still burnin', everyone who actually cares about me is on the other side o' the world an' I'm here, in Australia, with a big A-hole vampire I don't even like!" She stopped abruptly and started sobbing. "I hate you so fuckin' much right now."

The box that had been on the seat between them disappeared as if by magic and Eric was next to her, ignoring her weak struggles and pulling her tightly against his chest. "Please don't cry."

"Fuck you," she whimpered, but she'd stopped struggling and was gripping the sides of his shirt in her fists tightly. _'Jesus Christ, if this nimrod doesn't kiss her soon, we're all gonna drown in the sexual tension'_ Sookie heard Winston think, clear as day and couldn't help giggling through her hiccuping sobs. "You can't fix everything with sex, Tony."

"Maybe not, but it's usually worth a try." He grinned over at her while Eric frowned down at the top of her head. "I am taking Bo to get some Dough nuts. We might be like... ten minutes. Ten minutes good for you, Euro-trash?" He asked Eric.

Eric growled, but Winston was already laughing as he slipped from the car. Bo had the good grace to shoot him an apologetic look before following her friend. "I intensely dislike that little man."

"No, you just hate someone else bein' closer to Bo than you are." She sniffled, all unrepentant, into his shirt.

"She was always more like Godric than I," Eric said slowly, as though admitting it hurt him. Perhaps it did. "A vampire is not ruled by his emotions... that's what he said. Bo took to it, treated it as gospel while I... I suppose I spent a thousand years playing the unruly child." He laughed, a harsh, punishing sound. "Now here we are, the screw up and the over achiever..."

"I think she'd like it, very much, if you were with her on this," Sookie said, her face still a red, raw mess. "Nothin's absolute, Eric. You can't expect her to only listen to you, only need an' love you... if she did that she'd be screwed first time you're too busy to come runnin'."

"Are you suggesting that I think I'm the centre of the universe?"

"Don't you?"

"Well... from my perspective I am."

Sookie looked up at him seriously, and Eric found that even her red rimmed eyes and sightly dribbly nose didn't detract from the wisdom in her face. "Then how come you would have died for Godric an' me in the church when the Fellowship found us? How come we fought and risked everything instead of you jus' handin' Bill over to the magister? Why would you do those things if you only care about yourself?"

"Risk reward ratio's." He said shortly, refusing to look at her face. "Everything in life comes down to what you want, and the gamble you're willing to take to get it."

Sookie sighed sadly, "I dunno what's worse, the idea that you wont be honest with me, or that you might really believe that horse shit..."

"Do you really hate me, Sookie?"

"Sometimes. When you're an ass, or... when you're talking. When there're other people around..." She was ticking things off on her fingers again and Eric looked down to see a slight smile tantalising him at the corner of her mouth. "No, I don't hate you. I hate what you do sometimes, an' how you talk to people, manipulate them and me. I hate how you'll lie to me, how you'll say somethin' kind or do somethin' brave an' then ruin it by bein' a shit head."

"Is that all?"

"Oh no, I got a whole list if you got the time." She tilted her head up to look at him and he laughed, tightening his arms around her and kissing her forehead.

"I will make the time, as soon as everything stops going so spectacularly wrong. Perhaps then, when that's done, we could discuss some of your less than ingratiating habits?"

"Hey! I am lovely."

"Indeed, you are." He conceded, smiling, "However you wear far to many clothes, you refuse to allow me to slaughter those who wrong you and you haven't had sex with me in more than twenty four hours."

"ERIC!" She squeaked, slapping him in the chest. "Is that all you think about?"

"No, but it is quite high on the list."

.

"Do you think they're having sex in the car?" Winston asked casually as they stood at the counter waiting for the server to box up their high calorie treats. The server nearly dropped the box at this, and Winston grinned impishly, "you alright down there?"

Bo smiled, starting to come out of the black mood and punched him gently in the arm. "They better not, I just had it cleaned."

"He's an ass, I don't know what she see's in him."

"You mean besides the unbelievable good looks, the washboard abs and and arse you can bounce a quarter off? Besides all that?"

"Yes, besides that." He laughed and leaned against her as she fished out her wallet and paid. "You OK?" He asked, stroking her arm lightly.

"Yeah... tough day. That's all."

"Tell me about it, girl. I like Sookie though, she's cute, in a southern, double negative sort of way. Come on, let's go see if we can be the _interuptus_ in their coitus!"

"You're a sick, sick little fairy, you know that right?"

"You wouldn't love me if I was normal."


	3. You Drew Steel at my Side 03

"You should get some sleep," Eric said to Sookie when Bo closed the door to their apartment in Darlinghurst. "No doubt that emaciated little creature will want to take you sight seeing tomorrow."

"Remember that talk we _just_ had about you not being an ass for five minutes? Why don't ya go wild and make it ten, huh?" She put her jacket, which in reality was Eric's, over the back of the couch in the small but tidy living area and headed for the kitchen. "I keep wantin' to offer you coffee," she called over her shoulder, "seems rude to make it and not offer, you know?"

"Not really." He replied, sitting down and putting his booted feet up on the coffee table. "When vampires share food it's usually a... bonding, thing. You don't just offer someone else a nibble of your human."

"You don't offer _anyone_ else a nibble of this human! Got it?" She stuck her head through the serving window and glared at him.

"You can be assured I despise the idea of sharing you with anyone... " he was behind her before he'd finished speaking, his arms slipping around her waist and pulling her back against him. Eric had to hunch over to press his lips against the skin behind her ear and he grinned when she laughed and had to put the kettle down to keep from spilling boiling water everywhere.

"Eric!" She turned in his arms and found him looking down at her, doing nothing to hide his intentions. "Eric... please, stop." He frowned then and straightened, looking down at her seriously. "Don't look at me like that."

"You mean like you can't decide what you want and you're about to launch into another round of 'why Eric could never care about me', which, as you're well aware, is completely unfair, and absolute bull shit?"

"Eric..."

"If I am not allowed to 'Sookie' you, I don't see why you should be allowed to 'Eric' me." He leaned back against the cabinet, pulling his arms away but staying close enough that she could touch him if she moved just so... "I appreciate your situation. You gave Bill something he didn't deserve, because you thought he was someone he wasn't. It happens. Do you, at any time, consider that you watched me beg the person I cared about most not to take his own life... and he did it anyway?" His face was cool, calm, and that frightened Sookie a little, that he could say something like that with a straight face. She couldn't even think about Bill without tearing up.

"Freaks me out that you can do that..." she mumbled, desperate to turn the conversation in another direction.

"Do what?"

"Say things like that an'... I _do_ remember, I know I've seen you, the most vulnerable you can be... but you say it now an', I can't see any of it in your face. It's like you wear this mask an'... if I can't read your face or your thoughts, it's like I can't _see_ you at all." She looked up at him helplessly. She'd never felt safer than the night she'd spent in Godric's safe house with him. Never more powerful and meaningful than when she'd stood by him in the battle of Bon Temps, but somehow, standing across from him in a kitchen, trying to see a man and not a warrior or a vampire... it was hard. "I don' know anything about you, not really. Everything that happened back home, how wrong it all went, that was all 'cause I didn' even notice that I knew nothin' about the man I was sleepin' with. Now I'm on the other side of the world an' I'm doin' it all over again!"

"So ask me, Sookie. I am almost a thousand years old, I can't very well just tell you the story of my life from beginning to end, we don't have time right now. Ask whatever you think is important to know, and I will answer as best I can." He reached out and touched her cheek with the back of his hand. "You already know our most dangerous secret, Sookie, and I trust you with it. I have nothing _worth_ hiding compared to what you've learned tonight."

"Well I... I guess... do you, or more did you have family? When you were alive, I mean. What did you do before you were Sheriff? How many crazy, scarey vampire ex-girlfriends do you have that're gonna wanna eat me? Why are you smilin'?" She stopped and stared at his slowly growing grin.

"Are you aware that, when you get worked up, you start ticking things off on your fingers?" He chuckled as she looked down at her hands. She was holding the ring finger of her left hand in her right fist, as that's where she'd been up to when she'd hit 'why are you smiling'. "You do it when you're planning too. It's quite... adorable." His smile was irritatingly disarming, but before she could say so, he was answering her questions. "My family was killed before I was... My father, mother and my baby sister. Likely, it now seems, by Russell Edgeton."

"Is that why you an' Godric were chasing werewolves in world war two?"

"We tracked them constantly, Russell was even older than Godric and I believe they had some prior quarrel, though Godric never spoke of it. I don't even think Godric knew his name, we never got that close. I have avenged my family," he stopped and looked at her seriously, "without you, he might have gotten away from me again."

In the pause that followed, Sookie pushed forward off the wall she was leaning on and moved, timidly, into his arms, which he opened readily and folded around her. It was the first time she could remember actually deciding to touch him, the first time it had been a choice rather than just something that happened.

"And before I was sheriff I did... well, whatever Godric asked, in between Bo's crusades and my various business interests. Money is an unavoidable hassle, or at least it was before we could be honest about what we were, but it is an... entertaining way of keeping score." One of his hands crept up to stroke her hair, and she found she didn't mind.

"Keep score?"

Eric shrugged, "Business is just like battle, manoeuvring, tactics, it's just that in business you keep score with money rather than dead bodies or land. It's more civilised, war is messy, dead bodies smell bad and more territory usually just means more trouble. I took to America well, capitalism suits me."

"I guess I can see that, oh!" He looked down at her curiously only to smile obligingly when she said "can you scratch right there?" He scratched gently at her left shoulder and she put her head back against his chest. "Little harder and... yeah, down, jus' a bit."

The absurdity of having a dead man scratching her back seemed a small and distant thing. When she tilted her head back, slightly bleary eyed, it seemed the most natural thing in the world that he would lower his face to kiss her, which of course he did. His free hand rose to her face, his fingers slipping back to tangle in her hair as she moaned softly into his mouth.

"You were supposed to get some sleep," he breathed across her lips before kissing her again.

"This is not a path which leads to sleep..."

"Hmm, perhaps I should take you somewhere else first then?"

Slowly, very deliberately, she reached up and took his face in her hands, then pulled him back to her mouth. For a moment it seemed like he didn't know what to do, how to react, which Sookie had to admit she found adorable and a bit empowering. It didn't last of course, and she gave a startled giggle as he scooped her up in his arms, grinning against her lips.

Sookie giggled as Eric threw her across the room to land in the middle of the embarrassingly large bed. What exactly did Bo think they'd be getting up to in here? Eric pulled his shirt off over his head and stalked her, cat-like, up the bed while she scooted back, still laughing. "You don't look sleepy," he noted, crawling up over her legs, forcing her to lay back as he covered her body with his. "Perhaps I can wear you out... discharge your batteries?" His eyebrows waggled at her and she put her arms around his neck, still laughing.

"Don't you get sortof... tired of it? After a thousand years I mean."

"Of what, lover?"

Sookie blushed, "Well... sex. I mean, surely there're only so many ways to do it? You're like a high school jock, horny all the time!"

Eric laughed, propping himself up on his elbows and gently pushing her hair back from her face. "In a word, no. No, you don't." He kissed her neck, making her shiver and scratch gently at his shoulders which made him growl against her skin.

"Mmm... but, I'm on my second partner... ever... an' that took a little over a year. You must'a been with... well, my math isn't that good but a lot of people..." She babbled, stopping when Eric pulled up so he could look down at her.

Much to his surprise she didn't seem to be self concious about it, nor did she seem to be seeking validation. "I have... with varying levels of enjoyment, and each one was unique." He grinned and reached down between them, undoing her jeans and slipping his hand inside. Sookie bit her bottom lip and her hips shifted, lifting into his hand of their own accord. "You are unbelievably hot when you do that." Eric rumbled, rubbing her gently but firmly through the simple cotton of her underwear, drawing a low, shy moan from the back of her throat. "No one, not in another thousand years, will ever do that quite the way that you do."

She shivered against his chest, her hands slipping down his back, scratching lightly as she went, just to hear his chest rumble when she did it. There was a little mewl of protest when his hand left her pants and he took a hold of the bottom of her shirt, "arms up," he whispered and she complied, arching her back to help him get it off over her head. He kissed his way hungrily down the column of her throat to nip around the edges of her bra. Suddenly he stopped and looked up at her impishly, "do you want to go shopping tomorrow?"

"Huh?" She blinked in confusion and sighed, realising he was eyeing off the bra thoughtfully. "You're payin'..."

"Naturally." He grinned, gripping the offending piece of synthetic fabric in the middle and ripping it clean in half.

"You are such a drama-queen. It's like you jus' jumped on out of a bad romance novel." But she was laughing as she admonished him.

"A bad one?" Eric lent down and licked teasingly at one nipple, then the other. "I'm told both vampires and Vikings rank highly in such things..." he said before sliding his hand back down into her pants, nuzzling in-between her breasts happily. "You're no damsel though, are you Sookie?" He growled, his fingers moving into her underwear to cool her hot, tortured flesh with their touch. "I saw you, in the heat of battle," his fingers slipped inside her and her eyes popped open to stare at him a moment before fluttering shut again. "You drew steel at my side, we faced down an army. You and I, we destroyed the oldest Vampire monarch in the America's because he _dared_ to threaten what was ours."

"Eric," she gasped, her back arching slightly and her hips working against his hand. He was still a talker and Sookie would never have believed she'd be so turned on by it. More than the words, which perversely were really doing it for her, it was the way he said them. Fiercely and reverently, like she was some Viking war Goddess and he was worshipping her. He saw her straining up to meet him and his hand became more insistent while he paused his litany to bite down on her neck with blunt teeth, just hard enough to make her whimper and clutch at his shoulders, her nails digging in hard as her body tightened around his fingers.

"Tell you what... I will do that to you, every day, and you can let me know when you get bored with it." He was grinning wickedly above her as her eyes managed to focus. Sookie held up her hand, the pointy finger of doom deployed to give him a piece of her mind for being an egotistical jerk, then she thought better of it and started to wriggle out of her jeans instead. "Did you actually manage not to berate me for making you orgasm? I'm impressed. Whow!" He huffed as, having kicked her jeans and underwear away, she hiked a leg over his hip and rolled them so she was on top. "Hmm... this isn't necessarily a bad thing," he smirked, his hands moving to cup her breasts but she slapped them away.

"Ah! You just... hands up there where I can see 'em." Her own small hands were working at the fastening of his belt and then his jeans.

Eric, a disgustingly pleased look on his face, lay back and wrapped his hands around the slender wooden columns of the headboard. She bit her bottom lip as she tugged at his jeans and hauled them down his long legs when he lifted his hips without comment.

"That's not the part that bites," he said after a while of Sookie's lip biting and somewhat disconcerting staring.

"I know," she huffed, slightly annoyed at what she perceived to be his slight on her experience. "I jus'... well, I never got around to doin' this, that's all... I don't think I can... you know... not for six hours. It doesn't _have_ to take that long, right?"

To Eric's credit, he didn't laugh, though he wanted to, desperately. He did smile though, shaking his head, "if nothing else, dawn is in about an hour, so no, just this once, I believe I can step up the time table."

"You're making fun of me aren't you?" Sookie asked, just a little petulantly.

"Any man foolish enough to poke fun at a woman who's seriously considering putting his cock in her mouth is too stupid to live, lover."

"You're not, strictly speaking, alive..."

"And I learnt my lesson," He grinned his naughtiest grin at her and she laughed, slapping his thigh lightly, but unable to remain irritated with him, even in the face of her embarrassment.

"I don' know what to do..." she confessed softly.

"Whatever occurs to you lover, only with all manliness, I would ask that you do it soon... the waiting is torturous."

She stared at him, jutting up proud and defiant from a nest of blond curls and took a deep breath before lowering her face and giving it an experimental lick across the head. The fact that it moved under the pressure of her tongue surprised her somewhat, but the fact that it didn't have some weird, other-worldly flavour surprised her even more. She didn't know what she'd expected, but slightly musky skin wasn't it. Having convinced herself that the taste alone wasn't going to be a problem, she opened her mouth and carefully slipped it over the tip, sucking tentatively and bobbing down to see how far she could comfortably go.

All things considered, Eric hadn't actually expected her to dive right in like that, and he snapped one of the wooden columns off as his muscles contracted in an effort not to thrust up into her mouth. "Fuck... "

"You broke the bed!" Sookie gasped, half sitting up.

"I may be forced to tear the building down if you stop," he groaned, looking down at her with lustful, burning eyes.

The surge of power Sookie felt in that moment was completely unparalleled by anything she'd ever even heard about. Six foot plus of rippling, wild-eyed vampire lay before her, gripping on to the head board and tensing every muscle waiting on her, for no other reason than that she'd asked him to. Slightly drunk on this revelation, she bent down again and slowly slid him back into her mouth to be rewarded instantly with his shuddering groan. For the next ten minutes or so she tried sucking, using her tongue and various combinations of lips, tongue and hand, and was rewarded each time with a series of deepening groans and growls, and some swearing in a language she didn't understand. "Sookie..." he choked on the word a little and she looked up through her eyelashes at him, his neck straining to raise his head as he stared down at her with desperation in his eyes. "Please," he hissed.

Sookie had never considered herself power hungry before, possibly because she'd never really had any power that she could see, but this was power... so much power it made her head spin. She might have been a little clumsy as she scrambled up his body and arranged herself over him, but Eric didn't notice. She touched his face with one hand, while the other gripped his shoulder as she sank down around him, letting her head fall back and her eyes close at the sensation.

His shoulders flexed and his hips churned up to meet her, but it was a full minute before she realised he was still clinging to the headboard, simultaneously trying not to break it. She reached down and, moaning his name, guided his hands up to her hips. Eric practically roared, sitting up and wrapping his arms around her, kissing her hungrily until she saw stars. "Fuck... woman," he groaned into her neck, his hips jerking against her and his arms pulling her tightly against him until the friction drove her crazy.

Screwing her eyes shut tight she shoved her fingers in his hair, tilted her head to the side and pulled his face against her neck. It wasn't a subtle hint, and Eric wasn't a subtle guy, his fangs sank in deeply and he thrust harder, driving her screaming over the edge. Somewhere in there, the taste of her blood and the sound of her voice and... let's be honest, the sensation of her body trying to pull him in made it oh so easy to relax and let himself go.

Some time later, Sookie moaned softly and opened her eyes again. Eric was licking her neck gently, one hand cupping her head while the other stroked her back lazily.

"Eric..."

"Shh, lover... it's almost dawn... stay until I fall asleep?" The question seemed so soft, so innocent, especially in the face of their current condition. Sookie winced slightly as Eric helped her off him and then pulled her down to fit snugly against his chest.

"I didn't think you'd be a snuggler..." She yawned, her arms tightening around him slightly.

"Because I show such disdain for being pressed against your naked body...?"

She giggled for a while and was mostly asleep by the time she stopped.


	4. Hiding Away 04

"Do you think they know that their bedroom wall and our living room wall are like... the same wall?" Winston asked trying without success to watch the TV while the energetic sounds of sex were carrying quite clearly through the plaster wall which separated him and Bo from Eric and Sookie.

"Probably not... but I don't think he'd care." She smiled, wriggling her toes, which were sitting in Winston's lap, reminding him he was meant to be giving her a foot rub.

"Yeah yeah," He went back to massaging the soles of her feet, while she did his at the other end of the couch. "You need a man, you know that right?"

"Tony..." She said warningly, but he ignored her.

"I know you loved Godric. I do. I totally get it, the man was a dreamboat with very interesting tattoo's, but girl you are going to be here for a _**long**_ time. What? Are you going to spend the next five hundred years with a string of queers rubbing your feet?"

"Not if you don't pay more attention to them," she grumbled, wriggling her toes again.

"Bo... I love you. You know I do, and if vagina's weren't gross I'd be all over your shit, but you should have a big hunky man of your own doing this." He squeezed her foot gently. "I'm not going to be around forever..."

"Don't say things like that Tony, please. Just... just not right now. I know I'm hiding in the apartment with a fag instead of dating. I know. But I don't forgive him... and until I can forgive him I can't forgive any of them." She sighed and let her head flop back on the couch.

"He didn't do it to hurt you, he wasn't well..."

"He was two thousand years old and he's left me in a heap of shit with a half paragraph dear John letter!" She snapped. "Anything with a penis just... well just looks like a dick right now. Maybe I should give being a lesbian a try?"

Tony shrugged "you know Pam will love you loooooong time."

Bo threw a cushion at his head.


	5. Mad Queen in a Mad House 05

Sookie slept away most of the day in Eric's arms, which was much nicer than it might have been in winter, since the harsh Australian sun started baking the apartment at around two in the afternoon. By four she was forced to get up and go find the air conditioner. All the windows were covered with heavy sun shielding, so she made a coffee and went out onto the patio that overlooked the harbour. The view was breathtaking. She could see the famous bridge, which looked like a child's fantasy drawing even in real life, and the white sails of the opera house glistened in the sun.

"Morning" Winston called from the next balcony over. He was wearing board shorts and those orange sun glasses and had a huge stack of paperwork in a box called ' to do' and a frighteningly empty box with 'done' written on the side. "I thought maybe you were going to sleep all day!"

"Have you been to sleep?" She asked, leaning against the rail in the short pink silk robe she'd found in the bedroom.

"A little. I don't sleep much any more. Not when Bo's preoccupied anyway." He held up the wad of paper he was working on. "This little gem is a massive bitch session from a shifter in Coffs Harbour, complaining that the local criminal element is trying to recruit his daughter to steal things for them... It's all going nuts out there."

"Wow... you deal with all of that?"

"Not usually. But Bo was up to her eyebrows in bureaucratic BS last night trying to get an audience with the prime minister for tonight." He shook his head in irritation. "That woman wants to watch herself. I've got no idea what's going on in Canberra, but Bo's about ready to take a goon squad down there and start banging their heads together till something shakes lose."

"Can she really get away with doing that?"

Winston shrugged. "Australia's a weird place Sooks. You have to understand, our government's been doin' under the table deals with with supernatural community for two hundred years. Hell, the gas in the line is that half our army reserve in the Northern Territory are shifters! Yanks are right pissed off, made 'em look really stupid in the war games up there."

"Wow... I mean it makes sense I guess. You'd wonna have shifters in the military if you could. I wonder if we do that back home..."

"If you weren't before I bet you are now." Winston laughed. "Grab some pants and come round. Most of this is crap I put off cuz Bo really needs to deal with it."

"I thought you were sort of in charge when she's not around."

"Oh, I am. But there's in charge and then there's _**in charge**_, if you get my drift." Sookie looked at him blankly. "I can probably give just about any order short of 'kiss sunshine' to the local vamps, and they'll do it. They love Bo and they know me. Shifters, Were's and God knows what else? They're only behavin' cuz they're scared witless of Bo. An emaciated little queer doesn't really register on their scary-shit-o-meter."

"Oh. That makes sense I guess. I'll be 'round in a bit. Need a shower."

"I'll bet. You know our living room is on the other side of your bedroom wall right?" He laughed as she blushed. "I knew he'd be a talker!" He yelled at her back as she hurried inside.

.

It took Sookie almost an hour to recover to the point where she felt she could look Winston in the eye, she was so embarrassed. She had to admit though, she loved the climate. She really loved it! The crisp heat of the day without that heavy humidity of Louisiana, also, no mosquitoes! She wore her denim shorts and a simple green bikini when she ducked around to the apartment next door and knocked.

"Speak!" She heard Winston call.

"Tony? It's me, Sookie."

"Cool, come in!" Winston was tidying pedicure paraphernalia from the coffee table. "Sorry. It's something Bo and I do when we're stressed."

"Hmm? Oh that's fine. What was with the door thing though?"

"Sooks... you know vampires. You telling me you actually just holler 'come in' whenever someone knocks on your door?" He looked at her incredulously.

"I hadn't really thought about it..." she confessed, feeling a little stupid.

"I would if I were you. Bo'd pitch a real convincing fit if she thought I just let anyone in. I bet your Euro-trash wouldn't like you doin' it either."

"You really don't like him, do you?" Sookie said, trying to change the subject a little.

Winston shrugged. "He's OK I guess. Might be a guy thing. Might be an Australian thing. Hell might even be a gay thing, I just can't shake the need to push his buttons." Winston sat on the couch and gestured for Sookie to grab the other cocktail which was sitting on the coffee table. "It's probably Bo's fault." He admitted. "She all but worships the ground he walks on you know...?"

Sookie sipped at her drink and shook her head in confusion. "I think she's got baby sister syndrome. Big brother can do no wrong. They went through some really hairy shit, for like, hundreds of years and when Godric started going funny on them... I guess all she had to hold on to was him. She half convinced me that he'd get here and solve everything..." He sighed and took a bigger gulp of his drink. "Maybe I'm just disappointed that he's just another guy. I thought he'd be like Dracula the way she talked about him. He'd swoop in all bullshit special effects and save the day while simultaneously getting the girl and achieving world peace! He seems to be getting the girl, OK, but he's falling short in the other areas."

Sookie blushed but nodded slowly. "It's not just you... It's hard to see Eric as just a guy. If he were just a guy goin' through all this stuff, everythin' he's said an' done would be perfectly reasonable... I can't seem to see him that way either though. I guess I want him to be better somehow..."

"I don't think any one person can fix this. Except maybe Adam and lets face it, some days he has the IQ of a field mouse. He was pretty good last night, no screaming or babbling... sometimes he's an out and out mental patient."

"What do you think happened to him?" Sookie asked, starting to feel the slight fuzzy comfort of some alcohol in her stomach.

"I have no idea. Maybe people just aren't supposed to get that old? Maybe he saw something or did something that just spun him off to cloud cookoo. Between you and me, they don't really know where they came from." Sookie looked confused again. "Vampires I mean. As far as I've been able to work out, it's all myth and legend and quite likely exaggerated bull shit. They have no idea. They're not even one hundred percent sure how they procreate. Oh they can do it just fine, but we know way more about how making babies works than they know about making vampires. They're like Og the cave man, he can make it happen, but fucked if he knows how it works."

"I'd never really thought about any of that stuff... maybe I didn't want too."

"Or maybe, like everyone else, you had sense enough not to ask too many uncomfortable questions. Grilling a vampire for info isn't exactly an Einstein move. They tell you what they tell you." He gulped the last of his drink and sat back. "I seriously think if this shit doesn't calm down soon, I'm gonna become an alcoholic."

"I plan on keeping you around a long time yet little brother." Bo's voice said from the doorway to her bedroom. "So as much as you dislike the little fucker, you will treat your liver with respect."

"But it's evil and must be punished!" Winston complained. "Speaking of evil, you my most honoured sheriff, have an ass-load of paper work."

"It'll have to wait. I got a message sometime today from those troglodytes in Canberra. We're going for a little trip. Blades up in about two hours, pack light, we'll be back by morning." She smiled apologetically at Sookie as she moved into the kitchen for a true blood. "Eric. Put your pants on and get over here. We need to find something suitably scary for you to wear. I want to show the children that mummy's in a bad mood." She said, only slightly louder than normal. Two dull thuds sounded against the living room wall to show Eric had heard her.

"I wish I could order people around like that," Winston said wistfully.

"It's a girl thing."

"I'm an honorary girl!"

"Perhaps, but unless you get an honorary vagina, you're shit out of luck." Bo quipped as Eric walked in.

"Didn't we decide sleeping together was gross and incestuous in the eighteen hundreds?" Eric asked with an amused expression.

"Is that what it was? I thought we decided _**you **_were gross and incestuous," She smiled and Eric stood stock still for a moment then let his head fall back and laughed heartily.

"Bitch." Eric rumbled before making his way over to Sookie and leaning down to kiss her forehead. "Evening."

"I haven't been up that long... I guess the las' few days sort of knocked me out." She smiled up at him, finding it genuinely nice to share a simple, normal moment like that.

"I should have let you get more sleep last night." He said, with only a hint of apology in his voice.

"You should have let all of us get more sleep last night," Winston groused.

"I would modulate my efforts to drive my lover screaming to orgasm... but I don't like you that much." Eric said.

"Wasn't Sookie we could hear whimpering like a horny bitch last night," Winston retorted with a huge evil grin.

Sookie was blushing helplessly until Bo came to her rescue. "Alright children. Get your clothes and anything else you might need for this little adventure. Eric, would you do me the honour of wearing the intimidation suit please?" Eric shrugged in agreement, grinning theatrically. "Would you feel comfortable doing a little mental snooping for me, Sookie? There is something going on in parliament right now, they're not talking and they're shitting on a two hundred year old alliance and I want to know why. I don't need to know anything you wouldn't feel comfortable telling me," she stressed, "just if they're lying about the government. I will not let this country fall apart on my watch."

"I trust you," Sookie said, "'course I'll help."

"Thank you... Tony, you know what to do."

"Right, tart up the telepath and gay myself out." He saluted her and jumped up, offering Sookie his hand. "Come on. We should have something corporate enough for you to get by on tonight. How do you feel about a bun?"

Eric moved to join his sister in the kitchen as the humans left to get dressed. He watched her fussing with Winston's dirty dishes in the sink, studiously avoiding looking at him until he couldn't stand it any more. With vampiric speed he was beside her, pulling her hands from the hot water and tilting her chin with his other hand, forcing her to look at him.

"I'm sorry," he said softly, and Bo gasped in surprise. "I was angry, and childish. None of this is your fault. I meant what I said on the plane. If Godric had told me to lie to you, I would have, and then it would have been me counting on your forgiveness." He frowned seriously. "I suspect, had things been different, you would have been much kinder in this than I have... and I'm sorry."

With a helplessly relieved sigh, Bo let her self sink sideways against his chest and closed her eyes when he wrapped his arms around her. "I hate him so much... I didn't even hate the Roman's like this. They didn't make me love them first..."

"There's nothing for it now, little sister." He said, and she heard the words rumbling through his chest which so dwarfed her. "We do what we must, as we always have."

"Thank you."

"_I will change. We will scare the politicians and restore order to your house. Then I want a proper holiday."_ He said to her gently in her native language, ancient Welsh.

Bo smiled, her eyes drifting shut for a moment as she listened to him speak, she hadn't heard anyone use her language in a long time. Godric had preferred Swedish. "_When this is over I want another hundred years of therapy."_

_"Another?"_

_"I count that century we spent harassing the Roman's... It made me feel better anyway."_

_"Me too actually."_

.

When Bodicea had said 'blades up', for some reason Sookie had envisioned actual blades... sword blades. This had led to an irrational fear that they were going to the Australian capitol to kill all the politicians. The reality was even worse. Sookie didn't know anything about helicopters but one feature stood out with frightening clarity... this particular model had no doors.

"This is why we went with the bun," Winston yelled over the sound of the engine. "You're lucky. Eric and I are gonna wind up looking like a pair of Nimbin Ferals."

"I don' know what that means!" Sookie shouted, clutching at Eric's arm tightly.

"Bush rats. Hill hippies. They sleep in humpies and live of roo droppings."

Sookie just shook her head, completely lost and absolutely horrified by the machine that was supposed to carry her an unknown distance in the middle of the night.

"Relax Sookie, worst comes to worst, Eric and I can fly." Bo said with a wink.

"Oh, you worked it out?" Eric asked with a raised eyebrow.

Bo shrugged, "you throw yourself at the ground and miss... missing isn't that hard. Mostly it was just having the balls to try it. Godric was pretty pissed though," she smiled distantly, "he always said I'd be able to do it, but I think when I did he felt a little left out."

"Don't get cocky, princess, you're still short."

Bo gave him the finger and gestured for Winston to climb in. She followed but when Eric tried to encourage Sookie in, she froze.

"Hey... everything will be fine. Trust me." He said against her head and she bit down hard on her bottom lip.

"You two can really fly?" She asked.

"We can. I swear, you will be in no danger. I wont let anything happen to you Sookie..." Eric nodded encouragingly as she took a deep breath and let him help her up into the helicopter, where he buckled her securely into her seat.

Conversation was made impossible by the roar of the engines and the rotors. It required all of Sookie's plucked up courage to see out the flight in her own seat, the desperate desire to be much closer to Eric was almost overwhelming. All his reassuring looks weren't enough to slow her heartbeat one bit. Once the lights of the city of Sydney had receded, the passage of the ground beneath them was completely untraceable. It took a good forty five minutes before the lights of Canberra emerged from the darkness, nestled in a bowl of mountains that seemed purpose designed to protect the city from prying eyes.

The helicopter landed on a purpose built pad of concrete in the middle of a perfectly manicured lawn behind parliament house. The white building with it's lit columns and glass dome rose at the crest of the small hill on which it sat like an ancient Greek monument polished by an army of adoring hands. When the blades above them finally slowed, Eric reached over to release her from the seat belts to find her trembling violently.

"Sookie... you have to pull yourself together. I need you to be impenetrable now, call no attention to yourself. Do you understand?" Bo said urgently.

Sookie nodded, not trusting her voice, while Eric helped her down onto the landing pad and guided her away from the still slowly turning blades. Winston jumped down easily in his tight black skinny leg jeans and white dress shirt with squared shoulder pads. He offered Bo his hand and she took it, using it for balance as she stepped down in the multi-layered crimson dress in a medieval style that she customarily wore to these meetings. Her hair flailed wildly about her head as she'd worn it loose, adding to the overall affect.

At the edge of the concrete pad, a group of people in suits were standing at attention, and Winston noticed to his supreme irritation (and he was sure Bo's as well), the prime minister was not among them. He paused to allow Bo to right her dress, then offered her his arm. She put her hand lightly on his elbow and walked regally towards the assembled dignitaries, with Eric and Sookie falling in behind.

Eric had gone all out on his choice of suit. Black, tailored Armani from head to foot, and his hair neatly slicked back. Sookie thought he looked like a model on his day off except for the scowl he wore, which he directed mercilessly towards the politicians like a laser.

"Welcome to parliament house," One of them started, holding his hand out towards Bo, but Winston stepped purposefully between them with an imperious glare.

"You do not touch the Sheriff of Oceania." He said firmly. "Where is the Prime Minister?"

"She's in her office..." the man said uncertainly.

"Very good." Winston offered Bo his arm again and they walked around the assembled group, ignoring them completely, Eric and Sookie followed suit, and Sookie found it all rather theatrical and entertaining to be involved in such a production, knowing the participants as she did.

"She's ah, not ready to see you yet. I can show you to the waiting room." The poor man tried to say calmly, having to jog to keep up.

"Unnecessary. We're well aware of the way. The Sheriff will have her audience with the prime minister and be on her way home within the hour." Winston told him coolly, not breaking stride.

.

Sookie could hear the inarticulate terror in the minds of the bureaucrats who tried valiantly to both keep up with and delay them. The inside of Parliament house seemed like a maze to her, but Winston and Bo seemed to know where they were going. Soon, they approached a polished wooden door which Winston opened without knocking, then stood aside to allow the others to pass through, closing it firmly in the faces of the group of suited followers.

"What's the meaning of this?" A red headed woman demanded from behind a mahogany writing desk covered in papers.

For a moment, Sookie actually felt sorry for her. The woman looked drawn and tired, the papers piled around her looked half organised and overwhelming.

"You may be able to spend three days playing hide and seek with the Nauru ambassador, madam prime minister, but I always know where you are." Bo said sternly.

"You are not an elected representative, miss Icenii," Julia Gillard said coolly.

"You don't control vampires with a committee, prime minister. You control them with your will and your fist. I am Sheriff here because for two hundred years I have kept peace between your people and mine. Two hundred years from now, I will still be arguing with the occupant of that chair. The sooner you accept that, the smoother everything will proceed."

The prime minister sat back in her chair and laced her fingers together. "We'll see about that. I'm sure a suggestion to the authority that the government of this country might find it easier to deal with another personality would carry some weight."

Eric chuckled softly and carefully unhooked Sookie's arm from his before stepping forward.

"May I introduce my brother, Eric Northman. Sheriff of area five in the US?"

"You are labouring under a misapprehension, prime minister." Eric rumbled, towering over his sister by more than a foot.

"And what is that, exactly?" Gillard asked.

"That any human, ever, could possibly convince even a fraction of the vampire population to betray their sheriff." Eric leaned forward, resting his weight on his knuckles on the desks smooth surface and staring hard at the suddenly sweating woman. "Bodicea is the most respected Sheriff on the planet. She holds more political sway in the supernatural community that any three monarchs of Europe. Whatever power-play you think you're making here, my advice would be... don't. Thirty six hours ago, the political force that's now standing in your office, destabilised the American hierarchy... because it was inconvenient."

"Are you threatening me, Mr Northman?"

"I wouldn't dream of it, prime minister. I would simply hate for you to make any political decisions based on inaccurate information." He stood straight and rolled his shoulders back smoothly. "I'm here because Bodicea and I share the same maker, and seven hundred years of history. You have a very real problem, we are going to solve it for you."

"I have a meeting with Mr Abbott in fifteen minutes." Bo said firmly. "As leader of the opposition he should be kept informed, with an election unavoidable in the coming months."

"You'll be supporting Mr Abbott I assume?" Gillard asked.

Bo shrugged. "A vampires perspective is longer than a humans. The Howard government was in power for twelve years, and I was heavily involved with it. We achieved great things... the Labor government has had no interest at all in the supe-community. I have Tong using shifters and were's as muscle, most of whom are coming in on boats that your policies have opened the way for. Some help with that might be nice, by the way."

Sookie watched the whole thing quietly, never really raising her eyes. The prime ministers mind spun continually, almost reaching a logical state and then it'd veer wildly again. It was like she was physically stopped from thinking clearly. The meeting broke up, having accomplished nothing, out in the hallway, Bo took Winston's arm again and they made their way to a set of meeting rooms.

Inside a slender man in a suit with comically oversized ears sat waiting. He popped to his feet and held out his hand before the door was even closed. "Bodicea! Thank God you're back."

Bo took his hand and shook it. "Mr Abbott."

"Oh don't. Bloody hell, Tony. Tony, you've known me since I was a back bencher." He said, slightly flustered.

"This is my brother, Eric Northman, and his companion Sookie Stackhouse. What the hell is going on here Tony?"

"I have no idea. I really don't." He sat, having nodded to the others and lent back, putting his feet up on his table. "Kevin just... I don't even know how to describe it. He just lost it. Spying on his cabinet and getting twitchy..."

"He was under a great deal of stress..."

"Not just that. You have to understand I never liked the man." Tony said apologetically. "If I had I might have noticed sooner. I always thought he was a bit off... but in the last few weeks he wasn't just naive or over taken by ego... he was unstable. Utterly paranoid and incapable of thinking clearly."

Bo looked at Eric and Sookie carefully. "Tony... your word that what we say in this room stays here..."

"Of course, Bo... what is it?"

"Sookie...?" Bo looked at her expectantly. "What did you hear?"

Sookie swallowed hard, but Eric put his hand on her shoulder comfortingly. "She can't concentrate... she could hear what you were saying an' she knew you were right but... every time she tried to think clearly about it she jus'... It's like her mind couldn't focus, an' before I knew it she was back to bein' unreasonable. I don' think it's her fault..." She looked up at Eric. "I've seen somethin' like this before... with Longshadow..."

Eric nodded. "Longshadow glamoured one of my staff so that she physically couldn't think about the fact he'd betrayed me. Your prime minister is under someone's influence..."

Tony blinked stupidly for a moment and then ran a weary hand over his face. "Fuck me..." he breathed.


	6. Australian's Love to Gamble 06

Tony Abbott didn't ask how Sookie knew what she knew, he'd been around long enough to know a secret when he saw one. Coming from a solid catholic background, he'd long ago decided that it was best to just roll with everything and have faith that one way or another, by the time it was all over, everything would be as it should be. Even if he had no idea how that would come about.

"Is there any way to undo it? To... well break the influence?" He asked carefully, knowing full well that it was unlikely Bo would reveal anything too specific about exactly how glamouring worked.

Bo shook her head slowly. "I could try to override it, but that wouldn't put her back the way she was... it would just put me in control." She stared at him hard across the table, sure his mind was ticking away even though his face remained impassive. "And no, I wont do that. I helped build this system and I have faith in it. What we need is to find proof of the situation and take it to the people. They will decide."

"Is that wise?" Eric asked in a low rumble and Bo looked at him sharply. "A vampire has been interfering in the highest level of government... There will be a backlash."

"You're not wrong," Abbott breathed dejectedly. "This is a nightmare."

"I will not undo two hundred years of work, of trust with these people, because I have a traitor in my area!" Bo spat angrily. "I have worked too hard!" She leaned over the desk and looked Abbott in the eye. "I will find them, I swear. I will capture whoever is responsible and I will hand them over to the federal government. Publicly."

"Bo!" Eric grabbed her arm, half turning her to glare down at her resolved face. "You can't! The magister will..."

"The magister will rant, rave and then bend over and take it like a man. The treason to me is nothing compared to the breach of the trust I've built with these people!" She growled, her eyes hard and dark. "Whoever did this will be shamed, publicly, and then handed to the humans with detailed instructions on how to contain him." She looked over at Abbott who was sweating noticeably. "I imagine when this is over, the federal government will be you. Howard and I had already begun work on legislation for vampire offences against humans... dig it out. It will be up to you to decide what to do with him."

"You can't do this Bo," Eric warned, "it's too much. The Authority will have to do something, or they'll risk losing face."

"I don't care about their face!" She hissed. "Or their ass, or their so-called authority. This country is my life's work, and it was Godric's dream! There _**will**_ be peace here,"

"No matter the cost, little sister?" Eric shook her, but more gently this time before cupping her cheek gently with one hand. "Is that not what the Roman's said?"

"The Roman's slaughtered farmers and children for their peace, Eric... They raped and stole their way across our world." She shrugged, puling her face from his grasp, her eyes hardening again. "We are the problem, not them. Peace here doesn't require human blood... just vampire examples."

"Bo..." Winston said carefully, coming around beside Eric to look at her as calmly as he could manage, though his heart was racing. "We don't have the death penalty here... and we couldn't imprison him forever, whoever he is."

Sookie watched in fascinated horror as they argued back and forth over the fate of a yet unknown vampire who had managed to throw the entire political system into chaos. Finally, Abbott stood and cleared his throat. All eyes turned to him.

"The boy is right... we can't hold him Bodicea." He said carefully but firmly. "And under the law, we can't kill him. If he dies... will his hold over the prime minister be broken?"

"No." Bo shook her head. "It isn't a magic that dies with the caster... it's more like hypnosis. The change is in the human mind, once imposed it must be lifted and the only one who can realistically do that is the vampire who imposed it. We must find the proof and go public,"

"Or remove the prime minister," Eric said softly.

"Don't even think it!" Bo snapped.

"Why not? It's a solution, it would work, and it can be done tonight with a minimum of mess."

"A minimum of... For fuck's sake Eric, you have _**no**_ idea what I'm trying to do here, do you?"

Eric shrugged. "You're trying to build utopia out of the humans the rest of the world rejected and vampires who want to eat them. For a woman intent on cooking the world's most ambitious omelet, you're terribly squeamish about breaking your eggs."

"Compromise." Winston said firmly and both vampires turned to look at him. "Find the vampire. Contain him, secretly for God's sake, provide the sitting government with a list of the usual punishments and make them vote. Then you, as Sheriff, enact the punishment. Not one of democracy's most shining moments, but it's that or watch everything fall apart."

"Seconded," Abbott said.

"Third to pass." Eric looked down at Bo who was shaking with barely contained rage. "Heaven comes after the war, little sister. All holy men know that, they just don't like saying it out loud."

"And what about Gillard? Do we just let her run in the federal election as she is?" Bo asked sarcastically.

"She must be doing something, right?" Winston said in exasperation. Abbott nodded slowly, as did Eric but Bo just glared at him. "If she's been glamoured it's not just for poops and giggles, she's doing something. Something she wouldn't have done without the glamour. Find out what that is and expose it. She'll lose. All's well."

"That's a huge gamble..."

"Australian's love gambling." Abbott told her with a guilty smile. "And we're good at it. As the young man said... this is not democracy's finest hour. We should have anticipated something like this, if it's possible, someone will always do it. You know that even better than I do. We were unprepared and now we just have to get through it."

"Fuck," Bo hissed, and Tony Abbott nodded.

"Bodicea... no one can question your loyalty to this country..."he started only to be cut of by a sarcastic laugh.

"I wouldn't bet on that... people tend to find questioning loyalty very easy once things start to go wrong."

The meeting concluded, Bo spent the rest of the night in stony silence. Sookie felt frighteningly out of her depth, and neither Winston nor Eric seemed all that worried about the fact that Bo's perfect system was falling apart around her.

_'You look like you're about to shit yourself. Chill out."_ Winston thought, forcefully enough to get her attention. _"Bodicea is an idealist, and this is just about her worst nightmare... She'll take the hard medicine in the end, but all things considered, she'd rather burn than undermine legitimate process. Just make sure you stay out of the way when she finds whoever did this."_

Sookie tried to breathe normally and ignore the intensely uncomfortable air, she was so distracted by it that she hardly noticed the the trip back to Sydney. The terror that had gripped her on the way to the capitol couldn't fight through the certainty that something was going to explode when they got back.

There were no actual flames on landing, but there weren't any words either. Bo didn't wait for Winston to help her down in the ornate dress she wore, instead he hiked it up to her hips and jumped down easily, proving to Sookie that all the theatricality in Canberra had been nothing but an elaborate ritual. Winston sighed and jumped down himself, turning to offer Sookie his hand while Eric watched Bo leave with an unreadable expression.

"She'll calm down..." Winston assured her gently, leading her out from under the slowly spinning blades.

"I'll talk to her." Eric said, coming up behind them and putting a reassuring hand on Sookie's shoulder. "Or, more likely, I'll let her hit me for a while..."

"Will she be OK?" Sookie asked timidly.

"She feels everything so much more deeply than any vampire I have ever known." Eric said. "There are no grays in her world. No dubious grounds... just right and wrong."

"That might be nice..." Sookie said slowly.

"It's a curse." Winston interrupted her. "Nothing in the real world is black and white... which is why she gets thrown for a loop so often. She's not being difficult, Sooks, she's honestly horrified by all this."

"Bodicea will recover." Eric told them. "We have known each other for a long time. Once I bring her the traitor's broken, silver-ridden body and deposit it at her feet, all will once again be right with her world. It wont be as elegant as she would like, but it will satisfy her honor." He turned to Sookie and kissed her. "Go back with Winston. I will handle the sheriff of Oceania."

.

Erice wondered if they would ever grow out of this intense theatricality that all older vampires were infected with. Products of a more dramatic time, Eric admitted that even as he huffed and grumbled at Bo's adherence to her own rigid code of honor, that he had one too... and that he wouldn't love her as much if she were a modern woman. Bo was a perfect link to his past, she lived each day as though the Romans were still coming and the Goddess still watched over her, so Eric didn't have to. He was proud he'd rolled with the times, adapted, prospered... but all his gains were personal. He was wealthy, powerful, let's face it, he could have just about any woman he wanted. All of that was great, exactly what he'd wanted. Bo's goals were bigger, grander and infinitely more complex... and when they went wrong, infinitely more crushing.

"You're scaring the children," He said softly, coming up behind her at the edge of the roof on which they'd landed. "This is not their fault."

"No, it's mine. How could I not see this coming? Abbott was right, if it can be done, someone always will. I've known that for centuries and I just... I just didn't apply it here."

Eric moved up and stood behind her, his chin a good inch above the top of her head. "You care too much for these people, Bo..."

"Is that so wrong?" She demanded, squaring her shoulders and standing straighter, refusing to lean back against the reassuring solidity of his chest. "_**People**_ didn't do this, Eric. A vampire did. God knows what the hell they're planning, I don't know what to do with Adam, I don't know how much of this relates to him if it even relates to him at all!" She held her head up straighter and looked out over the city.

"What do you want me to do?" Eric asked, in his voice a cool submission.

"Help me find them. Then make sure the humans are somewhere else."

"As you wish," he wrapped one arm down over her shoulder and across her body, pulling her back against him, folding her up in his arms as he'd done the night they burnt Rome to the ground. "It will be done."

She wasn't grateful. Not really. Grateful implies there had been an uncertainty. There hadn't. Godric had been their deity for centuries, their north to follow, but he had always been different, separate from them. Just as Eric hadn't really been surprised to see her at the battle of Bon Temps, in his greatest hour of need, so Bodicea felt no fear that Eric wouldn't do as she asked... because he always had, and he always would.

"I should go make up with Winston... he hates it when I'm like this." She mumbled, looking down at the arm protectively crossing her chest.

"We all do. Your mood swings have been giving me whiplash for most of my life." Bo could hear the smile in his voice as he said it and allowed herself to lean back, so Eric knew that she would be alright.

"I need to find him a man... settle him down somewhere. He's too good for all this shit."

"The love he has for you has nothing to do with your body, Bo." He took a deep breath and huffed it out against her head. "I don't like the little parasite, but he is loyal... and he loves you like I do. At least, when I am far away, I know that you have someone who can withstand your moods."

"We're both made of money, why do we go decades, even a century, without seeing each other?" She asked softly.

"You know why."

"It's far to late for that, brother. Five hundred years ago maybe but now... now I just miss you. With Godric gone... you and I are all that's left."

"I know." He let go of her and stepped back, mildly uncomfortable at the turn the conversation had taken. When she turned to look up at him, her eyes were distant and gentle. "Perhaps, in another five hundred years, our time will come around again?"

She laughed softly and shook her head. "You don't believe that any more than I do. No, we made our choices, though at the time they didn't feel like choices. And you, my pathologically promiscuous north man, have finally found a woman you actually plan to keep for more than a week. To be honest, I think I like this better anyway... lovers risk everything. It's worth it, to be sure, but it's still a risk. You and I risk nothing on each other..."

"Do you like Sookie?"

"Very much." She grinned and turned back to the city, leaning back blindly, knowing he would be there. "She wont take your shit."

Eric chuckled, his chin resting on her head. "She was like that from the beginning. I could smell her fear, but there was no trace of it in her eyes."

"I'm sorry I've so frightened her... I will make it right..."

"Sookie is resilient. As long as she is confident that your rage wont turn to her, she'll be fine, and I will reassure her."

"You're still just a man, Eric. The women will need to talk eventually." She patted his arm gently. "You and I have been doing this for hundreds of years... she's in her twenties. I didn't even live to my twenties."

"How old were you?" Eric asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh I have no idea. Somewhere around eighteen, I suppose. If I had been twenty I'd have been a priestess when I died, and I wasn't... other than that it's all a bit fuzzy. Why? How old were you?"

"I haven't the faintest idea. Somewhat older than eighteen I imagine. With my human family gone, the celebration of birthdays seemed... cruel. I just kept going."

"You really are an old man." She smiled and he punched her gently in the arm. She responded with a feint to his stomach and a sharp kick to the shin.

"AH! You little bitch!" He laughed and they sparred across the roof until the threat of sunrise drove them indoors.

.

"She gets like this sometimes, try not to let it worry you." Winston poured Sookie another fantastically coloured cocktail. "Here, have a sex-on-the-beach and chill. Eric will talk her down."

"I thought you'd never met him before..." Sookie said, sipping at the sweet concoction.

"I haven't. But I know Bo, and she loves him deeply, she wont be able to stay unreasonable when he's there."

Leaning back against the couch, Sookie felt the warmth of the alcohol spread through her stomach. She realized that she'd had at least one drink every time her and Winston had been left alone together! She'd have to watch that.

"D'you think that they were... you know...?" Sookie looked at him over the rim of her glass.

Winston put his feet up on the table and relaxed back himself. "No. Bo was with Godric from the beginning. I think they were in love for a long time though," he sighed and let his head loll back, staring up at the ceiling. "Godric was like... well, like their God, I guess. And neither of them could stand the thought of hurting him like that so... I think that's why Bo agreed to come here. Get away from all of that. Other than the odd time Godric came to see her, she hasn't been with anyone for two hundred years."

A sick, sinking feeling began to grow in Sookie's stomach. Had she gotten herself caught up in the middle of a thousand year old love triangle? With Godric gone, would Bo and Eric work things out between them?

"Stop doing that." Winston said, and Sookie looked at him carefully. He still had his head lolled back and his eyes were closed. "I can hear you fretting all the way over here. Cut it out."

"But... if they've loved each other for so long... hundreds of years..."

"Then they're used to it." He sat up and looked at her seriously. "Eric loves you, and you love him and Bo is a self-sacrificing machine, much as I usually hate that quality in her. They had their chance, Sooks, and they were too worried about hurtin' someone else that they didn't take it. They can't have been _**that**_ in love, can they?"

"That's not fair."

"No it isn't. But it is what it is, and God help me she needs to get a life of her own! Look, Bo is my best friend, and I love her. The last thing she needs is to hitch herself up to Eric Northman. She'd just windup following him around and doing whatever he said, I know you don't think so, but it's true. She is useless when it comes to him, and he doesn't need that either. You think he'd _**like**_ himself in another hundred years if he turned her into a lapdog?"

Sookie was still thinking hard about that when the two undead came in, still half tripping each other up and launching pathetic (for a vampire) punches.

"OK...OK, I'm sorry." Bo said, though not to Eric, as Winston stood. "I'm calm. I'm in control... I'm going to kill a mother fucker, but I'm good... and I'm sorry." Winston wordlessly wrapped his arms around her shoulders and hugged her tightly.

"Love you."

"I love you too, little brother."

"I may be violently ill," Eric mumbled and flashed Bo a wicked grin when she glared at him.

"Oh, Fuck off." She straightened her dress and, keeping one arm around Winston's shoulders turned to face the others. "Now what the hell do we do?"

"Abbott gave me the prime ministers itinerary for the past month, and suggested that whoever got to her probably did it in Melbourne about two weeks ago... that's when she started going funny. So I guess we go to Melbourne." Winston told her, though he didn't look too happy about it.

"Do you want to stay here?" She asked gently, and Winston bristled in irritation.

"No. He's a cock and He can kiss my ass. Besides, you'll be there." He glanced at Sookie who was watching with interest. "I have an Ex there... he's... well lets just say he's not very pleasant."

"We could just as easily say he doesn't have very long to live," Eric pointed out.

"My my, euro-trash, are you actually sticking up for me?"

"Don't push it."


	7. To Feel Loves Keen Sting 07

"Sookie! Get up yanky!" She could hear Winston pounding on the wall that separated his living room from the bedroom she shared with Eric. "We gots arrangements to make."

With a grumble, Sookie kicked the wall twice and stumbled out to get coffee and clean herself up. A glance at the clock had her swearing under her breath; 12pm. How the hell was he awake? Eric wouldn't be awake for hours yet, Australian days were so long, Sookie wondered how vampires adapted to it.

Ten minutes later, face washed and the worst of her indisposition past, she knocked and Winston bounced as he opened the door. "Jeez, sleep much. Hup-too yanky, we need to be packed and ready to go by sundown."

"Jus' tell me we're not takin' the helicopter again." Sookie said, raising her hands in surrender.

"Too far, and way to fuckin' cold. No, private jet this time round. We should make it with plenty of time for some preliminary snooping, assuming of course Milton isn't waiting for us when we land." He said this last with a disgusted grimace.

"Milton?"

"My ex... he's probably got his finger on the pulse down there... little fucker always did like to know everything..."

"I thought Australian's had names like Bruce, and Danny... that's what you see on TV anyway. I never thought I'd meet one called Winston or Milton."

Winston shrugged. "That's multiculturalism for ya. This is the worlds biggest smelting pot, we got bad-ass faggot's named Winston and wussy little pansy straighties with names like Rock and Jackson. Milly might be a twisted little lap-kitten, but he's capable of being a spectacular pain in the ass."

"So... why were you with him?" Sookie asked.

"I was lonely, I think." Winston shrugged. "I hadn't known Bo that long, and being... like I am, the idea that it was OK was new and I was more than a little drunk on it. Bo warned me... She could see it... But I was nineteen and I knew everything." He grinned sheepishly at her and Sookie returned his smile. "So I slummed it with a guy who was neither as attractive nor as awesome as I thought. He turned out to be somewhat less than above board and six months later, Bo had to come to Melbourne, pick my sorry ass up and bring me home."

It was obviously a point of embarrassment for him, and Sookie didn't want to push it, she had plenty of embarrassing stuff in her past too. "I was going to marry a vampire... turned out I didn' know anything about him at all. He wasn't evil or anything but... when push came to shove, it turned out he didn' really know me either."

"So how did you wind up with tall, blond and humorless?"

Sookie accepted the obligatory cocktail without comment and sat on the arm of the couch, watching as he packed files into a laptop bag. "I don' even know really." She admitted. "My whole life jus... it just spiralled mad out of control and Eric was there. I guess we sort of hit rock bottom together an' used each other to get out."

"Is that what you thinks goin' on?" Winston asked with a raised eyebrow. "You think he's using you somehow?"

"Eric's real good at doin' what's best for Eric." Sookie said carefully. "I got this talent an'... Jesus Christ I have no idea what I'm doin'."

"You're cracking up is what you're doin'. Sooks, he's big, he's fine, he's obviously a wild root-rat in the sack given the noises comin' through that wall every night _**and **_he always puts himself in between you and anyone he doesn't know."

"What'd you mean?"

"I mean he acts like he's your personal bullet proof vest." Winston looked at her seriously. "I don't like him. He's smug, and rude, and straight, and worst of all sexy as hell, but he didn't bring you here for your gift... at least not the one you're thinkin' of."

"I don' know..."

"Well I do. Trust the fairy, the fairy is all knowing. Seriously, I'm great with all love lives except my own." He patted her hand gently. "Anyway, everything needs to be set by the time the dead guys get up. I was on the phone to Adam this morning and he wants to come with us! Bo's gonna have a hell of a time telling'im no."

"I thought Adam was meant to be in charge?" Sookie said, her brow furrowing. "Isn't he like, King of all the vampires or something?"

"Or something. Adam's... well you saw. The guy bakes cookies in his spare time. In vampires terms he's off his fucking rocker. Lost his biscuit's. Totally fucking bonkers." Winston sighed. "He's lovely... like, one hundred percent of the time. For a vampire, that's like death. You know, though, you must have seen it. However good they are, however kind and however much they love you... they've still gotta be able to rip a dude apart with their bare hands because eventually, that's what it's gonna come down to."

"Have you ever seen Bo fight?" Sookie asked, her mind flashing back to Bon Temps.

"A little... not like you have." He almost sounded jealous.

"She cut werewolves in half... like they weren't even there. Eric too... an' then they turned back into people when they fell. They didn' even slow down an' standing next to them... I felt like maybe I could be like that too." She wiped at her eye with the back of her hand and then stared down into her crushed ice drink. "Eric handed me this big knife, and he told me how to hold it an' then... an' then it was all over an' somehow I managed to not actually _**do**_ anythin'. Everyone I know an' care about was in that fight. They fought for their home an' their kids an'... an' me. An' jus' like a big ol' coward I got through the whole thing without actually killin' anyone."

"And you think that's a bad thing?" Winston put his drink down and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Sometime, in the future, you might actually have to fight. That's true for everybody. My personal tactic when trouble arrives is to duck and fuckin' cover and let Bo handle it. It is entirely possible that makes me a huge fucking pussy... but it also makes me alive. Bo doesn't need me to fight for her, and no offence babe, but Eric isn't keeping you around for your martial skills either. Admit it or not, they like humanity. They know they need to be reminded of things sometimes... things that don't involve blood or guts or power. I promise, Eric does not want you to fight. He just wants you to love him."

.

Five minutes after Bo woke up, the front door opened and a trepidatious Jedda bustled the cloak-shrouded Adam inside. The sheriff was furious.

"What am I supposed to do, Bo?" Jedda begged, "he _**is**_ my overseer. You can order me to take him right back but once we're outside he'll just order me to bring him in again! I'm a fucking pingpong ball here!"

Bodicea took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Alright... alright I see." She looked at Adam who was standing patiently, seemingly amused by the fact that Bo was talking about him like he wasn't even there.

"I want to go with you to Melbourne." He said simply.

"Adam... you know you can't. I have no idea how all this relates back to you, but I can't risk your life. You're too important!"

"You're too important to me for me to let you go alone." He said, still calm and cool, as though he spoke about the weather or a road trip. "I _**am**_ you're overseer..."

"Please don't do this, Adam... not now. You're not well..."

"I've been this way for hundreds of years. I think it's fairly safe to say I'm probably not going to get better... Whatever I used to be, that's gone. This is what I am now, and you're my oldest friend." He shrugged. "My position, as I understand it anyway, has nothing to do with whether or not you think I'm sane."

"He has a point, Bo." Eric told her, though he didn't look particularly pleased about it either. "You're the sheriff of an insignificant plot of Oceania, no one complained when Godric wrangled you this position mostly because no one else wanted it. There's no real power here... all your power comes from him."

"I can't protect you all the time if you're running around in Melbourne! I'm sorry, Adam, but you wont fight! I can't take you anywhere if you wont defend yourself." She took both his hands in hers and looked at him earnestly. "Please understand..."

"I am over twelve thousand years old, Bo." Adam pushed the cloak from his shoulders and dropped it on the couch. His hands moved slowly, in a flowing motion up from his thighs until they were level with Bo's shoulders, then, faster than even a vampire could see he grabbed her, spun her by the shoulders and pinned her hands behind her back. "I do not _**like**_ to fight. That doesn't mean I can't."

Bo blinked stupidly for a moment. It felt like he wasn't even holding her, she could feel hardly any pressure from his hands at all, and yet she couldn't budge him. "All this time..."

"You seemed to enjoy babying me, and I like to cook and play with children and draw and paint... but I have a terrible feeling now." He looked at the side of her face over her shoulder, his dark eyes deeply concerned. "I don't like what's happening here... This place is my home too."

"Alright..." She looked down in a strangely submissive gesture. "Alright. I give."

Adam let her go and stepped back, looking slightly abashed at his own behaviour. The truth was he hadn't known the move until the instant he'd performed it, but he was sure that, should the need arise, he'd be able to do it again. The next ten minutes were filled with Bo making Adam promise that he wouldn't wander off, he'd stay with her or Eric at all times. He promised. Swore. Oathed and anything else Bo could think of until everyone was pretty well sick of it.

"Bodicea," Adam gave the the cheekiest, youngest looking grin she'd ever seen. "Chill out."

Winston snorted his drink all over himself and half coughed half laughed for a few minutes. "You can be replaced," Bo grunted at him in mock irritation, but he only laughed harder.

Adam, Sookie noticed, travelled comically light. The clothes on his back seemed to be all he intended to bring, with one, small satchel where he kept his sketching pencils and a sketchbook of high quality paper. Now that she thought about it, none of the vampires seemed to be bringing much... Eric had one small bag with a few clothes and frighteningly a set of evil looking long daggers in it. Bo had a similar sized carry-on bag with one formal, one 'work' and one 'sleep' outfit... and knives. When she looked at Winston's packing she didn't feel as bad about her single, if somewhat larger suitcase. Winston seemed to have packed everything he owned into a half dozen bags which were all bulging under the strain.

"Speak not." He said to her foppishly. "It's all absolutely necessary."

Sookie giggled. "You should come to Louisiana and meet a friend of mine..."

"Ohh... is this a hot friend?"

"I... well... he seems to think so. Yeah. He's my best friends cousin, he's got that whole angry black gay thing goin' on."

Winston grinned evilly and put a hand theatrically to his forehead. "You know what they say Bo, once you go black, you never go back! You might lose me to the yankies."

"Oh yeah," She laughed at him and slapped him on the ass. "Because Eric will put up with all your shit and let you run the house in area 5 like I do here."

Eric growled. Adam sat quietly, and seemingly quite content, in the middle of the somewhat theatrical drama of Bo's living room. Something about the complex interactions between loved ones made him feel at home, even if he wasn't directly involved. He watched Bo finish putting up her hair and smiled when she glanced at him. "You look lovely," he told her.

She smiled back but then the look melted. "Winston, find Adam something else to wear. Lots of black and leather..."

"What's wrong with this?" Adam looked down at himself. His clothing was perfectly nondescript. Fawn coloured cargo pants and a large dark blue cardigan. To be honest he looked like a starving art student more than a vampire.

"You look like target practice." Eric grunted. "You can't expose him as the overseer, Bo..."

"Course not. He's got a baby-face anyway, we'll sell him as my progeny, everyone knows I don't _**have**_ any so he must be very, very new." She stopped in front of Adam and messed with his hair. "Gel too, 'Tony! We'll stick this straight up, and..."

"I'm not a barbie, Bodicea!" Adam snapped, and everyone looked at him in shock. Bo's hand was frozen in the air above his hair, her face stunned. "I'm sorry... sorry..." Adam fidgeted a little and finally reached up and took Bo's hand, squeezing it gently. "I'm sorry... do what you think best..."

"Time to go. I will take the bags." Eric said firmly, hefting up the bags and ushering the humans towards the door. Winston looked like he was going to argue for a moment, but he thought better of it, simply dumping the armful of clothes (which looked suspiciously like a punk Halloween costume) onto the couch. "We will see you on the plane." Eric nodded to both of them and pulled the door closed behind him.

Out in the hallway Winston took his carry-on bag and Sookie's off Eric and slung them over his shoulders, which took the weight surprisingly well. "You're not a complete tool."

"Shut up."

"Yeah, cuz that's likely." Winston stepped in front of Eric, forcing him to stop. "I was worried you'd fuck that up..."

"You know nothing about me." Eric said firmly, his eyes cold.

"But I know everything about her." It looked like Winston was going to get his back up and go on a tirade, but he pulled it under control and glared up at Eric instead. "I'm tryin' to apologise alright. Stop being a cock!"

With a irritable expression, Eric dropped all the bags and pinned Winston against the wall by his throat, growling. "You are toying with something you don't understand!"

"Eric!" Sookie grabbed his arm, tugging at it firmly though she knew he'd only budge if he wanted too. "Let him go! You let him go right now! You _**are**_ bein' a dick. Why can't you accept'at you're not the only brother she has?"

His cold eyes turned on her and it took a moment for the glare he'd been dealing to Winston to fade from his eyes. He couldn't accept it... he wasn't sure he would ever be able to accept it.

"This is not a brother, it is a pet."

"Even if that _**were**_ true, an' we both know it's not, but even if it were, no one want's their pet strangled! Let'im down!" Sookie stomped hard on his foot to try to make her point. Eric hardly felt it of course, but in the wake of her angry glare he loosened his grip and let Winston go. "You don't have exclusive rights to her, Eric. You better come to terms with that pretty damn fast, or you're gonna lose everything." She turned her back on him and helped Winston pick up the bags. Between the two of them they managed to struggle the lot down the hallway to the elevator, leaving Eric, shaking with his own impotent rage, alone and useless.

"Thank you..." Winston said softly once the doors had closed.

"He's bein' a shit." Sookie said firmly, though her eyes were shining with scarcely controllable emotion. "If he's that obsessed with her... if he can't handle..." She looked at him, her eyes wide and frightened. "I can't be with someone like that..."

"Sooks..." Winston started, then just dropped his bags and put his arms around her. By the time the elevator hit the ground floor, Sookie's eyes were red and her face splotchy, and Winston had his arms around her tightly. "Get the bags." He said shortly to Eric, who had used his speed and was waiting when the doors opened. Sookie tried her best to look composed, but it was impossible, as Winston led her out to the waiting car. They both climbed in the back and pointedly closed the door, forcing Eric to sit in the front with the driver unless he wanted to make a scene.

After a moment's calculation, Eric decided making a scene wasn't in his best interests. He all but threw the bags into the boot and slammed the door with enough force that the driver was concerned for his vehicle. "Have another car wait for the sheriff and her progeny." Eric said shortly.

If the driver was surprised by the revelation that the Sheriff had made another vampire, he didn't show it. He simply radioed for another car, and drove his emotional cargo to the airstrip in silence. He did, however, decide that it might be time to ask for a transfer to another area... vampires are just too high maintenance and he wasn't getting any younger.

.

The sheriff and the overseer sized each other up carefully, neither particularly confident that they understood what had just happened.

"I didn't mean to snap at you Bo..." He said after a long pause, looking abashed and ashamed. She was looking at him speculatively, and Adam could see what she was thinking... what she was hoping... but she was wrong. "It wasn't that other 'me' Bo... I was just pissy." He sighed and leaned back against the couch, his hands in his lap fidgeting restlessly. "Whenever anything happens, if I make a face or say something... you always look at me like that. Like you're waiting for the 'real' me to come back..."

"Adam..."

"No, it's OK. I know why you do it... you want to be able to get on with your life. You've been here looking after me for two hundred years. You gave up everything for it..." He glanced up at her, but couldn't hold her eyes and went right back to looking at his hands. "I've read the books though. The ones you thought you'd hidden from me... I understand who I used to be."

"Adam, you shouldn't have,"

"Shouldn't have what? Found out who you want me to turn back into? That's not fair, Bo!" He sighed, "do you really want me to be like that? Like I was?"

"Who's to say you'd still be like that?" Bo said carefully. "Godric wasn't anything like that, and that was almost a thousand years ago. People grow, they change with the time. I'm not the same woman I was when I was turned."

"You change with time... that other me hasn't had any time. He'd be just like he was five hundred years ago. Violent. Brutal... he was evil, Bo... I don't _**want**_ to be him. I want to be me." He told her, voicing the thought for the first time in hundreds of years. Finally, with much effort, he looked up at her, his heart in his eyes, "Don't you want me to be like this... rather than like that?"

"I..."

"It's a simple enough question Bodicea..."

"I want you to be well, Adam." She said helplessly. "It doesn't matter how I'd like you to be."

"It matters to me." He said firmly, though his eyes were nervous. "My first real memory is of Godric... taking care of me. Talking to me through the most awful confusion and terror... he was a great maker, in spite of me, of everything that other me must have done to him. I want to be what Godric made me... just like you. Just like Eric."

With a sigh, Bo sat next to him on the couch and put a hand on his knee. "I miss him..."

"Me too."

"He would have known what to do... maybe he'd have done everything differently and we wouldn't be in this mess now." She leaned against him when he slipped an arm around her shoulders. "What do you want to do?" She asked at last... after two hundred years.

"I want to learn how to be what I am..."

"A vampire?" She asked, tilting her head back to look at him carefully.

Adam shook his head slightly and schooled his face into a firm, confident expression, though he hardly felt confident at all. "The overseer. Godric was terrified of taking power... he saw what it did to me before. But I'm not that me any more, wherever I came from, whatever power made me, it's gone. Godric is my maker now, and I have something I couldn't even have imagined in my first ten thousand years... " At Bo's raised eyebrow he pressed his forehead against hers, their noses lining up perfectly and his eyes shining. "I've got you..."

.

Bodicea and Adam arrived at the plane some forty minutes after the others, and were met with a stony silence. Winston and Sookie were sitting together at the back of the plane, a blanket over them both and 'Someone Like You' playing on the DVD player they'd hooked up. Eric sat, cold-eyed and angry near the door, his arms crossed over his chest. Bo and Adam shared a confused expression and Bo gently urged him forward to go sit with the humans while she took the seat next to Eric and put on the belt as the light above them came on.

"_Talk about it?_" She asked gently in Welsh.

"No." He said firmly in English.

"_Don't be like that. You've never let your Viking temper come between us before._" She reached over and put a hand on his arm but he flinched and shook it off. "E_ric, what the hell is wrong with you?_'

"_I do not like your human._" He responded tersely.

"_So? That's nothing new since yesterday. For the record though, he isn't __**my**_ _human... he's my friend._"

"_I do not like him._"

"_You have said that already. You don't have to like him Eric. __**I**_ _like him, that should be enough for you._"

"_Well it isn't._"

"Eric, what the fuck is going on with you?" She asked in English, as Welsh swear words weren't as satisfying to say.

"It presumes to much!" He grunted angrily. "Makes assumptions based on,"

"Based on what his friend has told him, Eric. Girlfriends do that. It's in his job description to hate who I hate, distrust and test everyone I like and see no ill in me. I know you might be too much of a man to understand that, but it's not Winston who's behaving strangely here."

"I do not enjoy sharing you..." He confessed eventually. "Certainly not with... that human."

"But it's perfectly acceptable for you to expect me to share you with Sookie?" Bo asked with a raised eyebrow. "You will tell her things you haven't told me... you share our pasts with her, trust her... you love her whether you'll say it or not, but you get to have a macho spaz-out because I have a friend?"

"That is not fair,"

"No. It's not, that's sort of my point. Hey, I like Sookie, you know I do. I like _**anything**_ that's good for you. I've been your baby sister for centuries, Eric... but that can't be **all** I am forever."

"Why not?" He asked petulantly, and Bo knew she'd made her point. "I love you, more than my life..."

"I know. I love you too, brother." She looked up at him with a wry smile. "You've pissed off your girlfriend something wicked you know?"

"I do that quite frequently."

"You might want to work on that..."

"I am. Doesn't it show?"

"No. Try harder."


	8. The Monster and the Minx 08

"Are you alright?" Adam asked softly, after a very long pause.

Sookie nodded, tugging the blanket tighter around herself while Winston sighed and let his head flop back. "Sometimes he's such a huge jerk."

"He's just scared... fear makes us all act badly." Adam told her. "I'm sorry... that I shouted before. I guess I'm scared too."

"What does meat-head jerk's-alot have to be scared of?" Winston grumbled, his eyes still closed and one hand gently touching his slightly bruised neck.

"He and Bo have been two peas in a pod for a very long time."

"I really don't see that changing any time soon," Winston interrupted.

"It's changing already." Adam disagreed. "It has been for some time. Two hundred years ago, at a word from Eric, Bo would have dropped everything. Now she has responsibilities of her own, friends and a life of her own." He smiled a little sadly. "As much as you might think it is Bo who was chasing Eric for attention, the fact is that her love and loyalty have been the stabilizing force in his life for six hundred years. Godric was busy with me, so they were on their own. She hasn't realized it yet, but Bo isn't anyone's baby sister anymore, and Eric is beginning to see it. He doesn't hate you Winston... you frighten him. No one likes to be frightened."

"That's not a very good excuse for being a cock-head."

Adam laughed softly. "No, no it isn't, but it wasn't meant to be. Excuses lead to stagnation, a continuation of the same old thing... what I gave you was an explanation. Explanations can lead to solutions... if you let them."

"So I'm just supposed to forgive him for nearly strangling me to death, is that it?"

Adam shrugged. "That's up to you. I just thought knowing might help you arrange it so he doesn't do it again." He looked at Sookie and for a moment he looked so much like Godric that Sookie had to blink to clear the illusion from her eyes. "I'm sorry all this is hurting you... Buddhists say that suffering is good for the soul, perhaps... if he were to suffer, just a little, some things might become clearer to him..." He had an adorably raised eyebrow and the slightest quirk of a cheeky smile that made it impossible for Sookie not to smile back.

"You think I should... punish him? How?"

"Punishment is negative reinforcement... that's mean. No, don't punish, just don't reward him. Withhold what he wants until he behaves appropriately. He'll work it out eventually."

"What do I have to withhold?" She asked, wide-eyed at the idea of an ancient vampire giving her impish relationship advice.

Adam and Winston both looked at her steadily for a while until she blushed and pulled the blanket up over her head half giggling half groaning. The boy's joined in and from the far end of the plane, Eric scowled.

"They're playing, Eric. Leave them alone." Bo sighed, looking up from the open file on her lap.

"They're baiting me."

"They're making themselves feel better about the fact you've been a shit head." She shook her head and patted his thigh gently. "I honestly believe that you are the best brother in the world, and I'm lucky to have you... but you're a shit awful boyfriend."

Eric made a face. "Boyfriend?"

"Isn't that what you are? Move with the times Viking, modern language dictates that you are her boyfriend, start acting like it, or change it, but you can't have both."

"But... boyfriend? I'm almost a thousand years old,"

"And your relationship, by my calculations, is less than a month old. Your ego is perfectly well established, it's the relationship that needs the support right now. Suck it up tough guy," She looked at him sideways, "or let her go." Eric looked at her sharply but didn't have time to object. "You're torturing her and it isn't fair." She closed the file and leaned on it so she could move her face closer to his. "When I was turned you were patient with me. Explained the world to me. You taught me everything, about everything. Don't confuse her inner strength for experience, brother. You need to make sure she knows everything she needs too... or you have to let her go back to her old life. Ignorance is a death sentence... you knew that six hundred years ago."

.

The flight to Melbourne was deceptively quiet. Eric and Bo remained in their seats and the others huddled together at the back watching TV. Descent was blessedly smooth and Sookie felt quite proud of herself for not panicking and not getting drunk to avoid said panic. Winston and Adam each took one of her hands and she smiled broadly at them as they helped her to rise and let her out of the seats first.

Adam winked at Winston, who grinned back. They each took one of her arms and escorted her out of the plane, effectively blocking Eric out.

"Breathe, brother." Bo told him with a slight smile. "You brought this on yourself..."

With a huff he crossed his arms over his chest before finally looking down at her, "Alright, fine. What do I do?"

She laughed and punched him in the arm companionably. "She's punishing you. Might help if you suffered a bit more obviously. Mope. Miss her. A spectacular gesture of contrition in front of everyone wouldn't hurt either."

"You've got to be kidding..."

"You don't want the answer, don't ask the questions. I'm giving you gold here, you want a speedy resolution? Suffer and beg."

"I do not beg." He told her stiffly.

"You'll beg if you want it bad enough..." She told him with a grin, but Eric's mind flashed back to the rooftop in Dallas. _Please.__Please__Godric_... Was that what it would feel like if Sookie went away?

Up ahead a baggage monkey had scooped up their luggage and was toting it towards the private exit, beyond which the car Bo had arranged would be waiting for them. Adam, Winston and Sookie were through the door a couple of minutes ahead of them and it was only their undead augmented hearing that allowed Bo and Eric to know what was going on.

"Oh for fuck's sake, you scabrous troll what the hell are you doing here?" Winston cried, automatically urging Sookie and Adam behind him, though he didn't really expect real trouble.

"Crap, that little fucker really does know everything." Bo hissed, scooting through the door at vampire speed with Eric right behind her. She stood menacingly next to Winston while Eric, all unenthusiastic, took his other side to present a unified face, though he couldn't see any real danger from the tubby blonde man before him.

"And here comes the cavalry." Milton said dryly. "I shouldn't be surprised, she never let's you stray far."

"What do you want, Milton?" Winston asked sternly.

"Just to see you. I honestly didn't think you'd ever come back here... I thought maybe you'd want to see me." His smile, set in a wide, round face with a prominent nose all framed with slightly lank, long blond hair made him look cadaverous. Like someone who'd recently died of plague.

"I'm here on business. I'm not going to be scared out of a city just because you're a freak who can't respect boundaries." Winston spat.

"Snap it in half and lets go. We don't have time for this." Eric growled, rather glad to have a target for his irritation that wasn't going to get him into trouble.

"Would you take the others to the car please Eric?" Bo asked him calmly. Eric complied with obvious reluctance and Winston followed him gladly. With a sinister turn of face in the florescent light, Bo closed the distance between her and Milton at vampire speed and loomed over him. "I don't have time for your bullshit. Leave him alone. No phone calls, no visits, no fucking around. You are too incompetent not to have skeletons in your closet, fuck with me and I will lay all your shit bare. Play your little bullshit games with him some other time."

She left him, slightly shaken and stony-faced at the exit and followed the others to the car. Milton took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to calm his frazzled nerves. Of course he'd known she'd be there, there was no way she'd be far from him, and he knew he'd be in shit for going but he'd had to see. He tugged his gaudy white and tan coat around himself tighter and turned to head back to his car. If he was very careful, no one need ever know he'd gone, risked the whole operation just for his stupid obsession. He didn't have much time left, everything had to be ready... if he didn't keep his end of the bargain, he wouldn't get his payment.

.

"What did you say to him?" Winston asked when Bo climbed into the car.

"Does it matter? He never listens." She sighed and leaned over, putting her arm around Winston's shoulders and smiling slightly when he sighed and curled against her side like a child. "He's not well... we've known that for a long time. I don't know that it matters what anyone says to him."

"What do we do now?" Adam asked from where he sat beside Sookie, leaving Eric alone in the front seat next to the driver.

"Now we do a quick costume change and head to Lupo Argo. It's a club in the central district, an old friend runs it... he also runs my local intelligence network. We've got the prime ministers itinerary, I'll have him spook all her stops and we'll see if anything turns up. Winston, you OK to come with us, or do you want to stay at the hotel?"

"Hey, greasy cadaver-man is not trapping me in the most boring beige hotel of all time while my girl goes to Lupo Argo. Oh no, you can work, I'mma get my groove on."

She laughed at him and kissed his hair lightly. "Alright alright, just numbers tonight though, OK? I promise, when this is all over, we can do a booty tour and you can pick up as many toy-boys as you like."

"Swear?" Winston asked, his eyes lighting up.

"I swear. All we have to do it save the country, possibly save my species, maintain the rule of law, ensure there's no supernatural tampering in the election, punish those responsible and solidify peace in our time. Then you can have all the booty you want."

Winston glared at her confidently smiling face while Sookie and Adam laughed.

.

Winston whisked Sookie away the moment they were through the suite doors, announcing that anything that came through the door that liked 'pussy' would be beaten mercilessly. Girls and fags only. Eric glared at the closed door for a moment and then turned to find Bo and Adam giving him startlingly similar looks of pity laced with amusement.

"Let her have some space," Adam advised, while at the same time Bo said, "Look hot, and be disdainful of ALL women who approach you tonight." They looked at each other, grinning and then back at Eric who thought the symmetry between them was a little creepy.

"Alright little one," Bo said with a smile to Adam who's eyebrows shot up to his hairline. "Who are you?"

"I have no idea!" He announced cheekily. "But I have a feeling you're going to tell me."

She looked at him speculatively for a moment, her head tilted to one side and a gentle smile on her face. "You seem better lately, you know? Calmer..."

"You've been spending a lot of time with me lately... maybe you're good for me?" Bo laughed and put her arms around him, hugging him tightly for a moment and giving him a kiss on the forehead before ruffling his hair.

"It's no ones doing but your own, Adam. You are making yourself better..." She went off on a rambling recitation of possible persona's for Adam's newly turned vampire act. He hardly paid attention though, as in the end it was unlikely he'd be asked too many questions. Also he could only really remember the last few decades clearly anyway, it wasn't like he was going to drop a bomb about being around in the blitz or anything... he wasn't even sure where he was during the war. Probably in Australia, but it was fuzzy and vague.

"It'll be fine, Bo. No one is going to want to talk to me all that much anyway. A two week old vampire isn't interesting... not compared to two sheriff's. I'll just stay with Winston and Sookie and try to look unobtrusive. I promise."

"How are you feeling about being around so many people?" She asked carefully.

"OK, I think. I wouldn't want to be left alone, but I'm sure Sookie will stay with me." He smiled shyly. "I like her, she's sweet."

"I can't believe I'm going to say this, but are you confident you can keep her out of trouble?" Bo asked. "You pulled off a decent move earlier tonight, but you haven't fought anyone in hundreds of years..."

"You don't really need to be good when you're faster and stronger than everyone else." He told her with a shrug. "To be honest, I made up what I did earlier, but it was all in slow motion to me."

"I didn't realize you're that fast..."

He chuckled softly. "I don't think I did either!"

"That's comforting..." she said blandly but smiled when he grinned and kissed her cheek. "You've come over all smooth the last few days."

"The humans say 'success breeds success'. My cookies turned out really well, everything's been going well since then."

"You're suggesting you cured yourself with baking?" She shook her head, laughing. "Let's hope that one never get's out. The overseer likes to make tasty treats."

"Drum roll please!" Winston called through the bedroom door.

Adam, laughing, drummed his hands on the table for a moment until the bedroom door swung open and Sookie came out, blushing prettily and looking beautiful. To everyone's surprise, Winston hadn't skanked her up to the nines. The dress she wore came down just past her knees and she wore strappy low heeled shoes. Her make up was simple and understated and her hair was half up, with the rest curling gently around her shoulders.

"You look lovely dear." Bo said, then laughed when Winston came out behind her in a pair of skin tight black leather pants and a white singlet that looked like it had been sprayed directly onto his skin. His hair was gelled straight up and he had a little glittery flower stuck on each cheek. "And you look like one of Lady GaGa's back up dancers!"

"Perfect! Exactly what I was aiming for!" He looked her up and down in her jeans, sneakers and a long sleeved shirt. "You're not going like that are you?"

"I'm not trying to pick up, 'tony..."

"Baby, you're single, you should _**always**_ be trying to pick up. Go change. The jeans can stay, but no sneakers and for the love of God get rid of that shirt. It's gray and it makes your look like a social reject." Bo held up her hands in surrender and disappeared into the bedroom. "Now, what are we going to do with you?" Winston asked looking at Adam who was still in his cargo's.

"Oh... I... I thought..."

"You thought one little hissy-fit got you off the hook? Think again, great one, you are not hiding a fine ass like that under baggy clothes. Go on, there are three piles on the bed to choose from. Scoot!" Adam hurried off, clutching his satchel. "And leave that damn bag here! It makes you look like a hippy tryin' to find a place to spark up a doobie!"

"Should you really talk to him like that?" Sookie asked, perching on the arm of the couch. "He is like, King of the vampires after all."

"Does he strike you as someone who wants others to walk on eggshells around him?" Winston asked. "This is the most stable I've ever seen him, an' I'm not going to undermine that by reminding him all the time that he used to be a basket case."

"_**Winston**_!" Adam called from Winton's bedroom. "I can't move properly in any of these pants!"

"You're a vampire and a little stiff fabric is going to slow you down?" Winston called back. "You'll be fine!"

.

Lupo Argo was a simple wooden door in a back alley off the main drag. No lights, no sign, just the vague hint of base heavy music drifting up from the basement and a line a block and a half long to get in which Bo completely ignored. Some of the people in line looked like fangtasia regulars, pimped out in black and silver, covered in spikes and studs and painful looking piercings. Others looked like standard pretty young things with two years left in their degree, propelled by the desperate urge to dance off the weeks stresses.

A huge, burly meat-shield stood stony-faced, arms crossed over massive chests, on either side of the door while a little woman checked I.D and ushered people in.

"Hey!" Someone objected when Bo slide the group to the front past the line and waited for I.D lady to notice them.

"Sheriff!" the woman said, surprised. "Lern didn't say you were coming! Pop through, pop through! Don't worry about the whiners, little bastards turn up every other night and treat the place like a meat market."

"And Lern hates every moment of it, right?" Bo laughed, gesturing for the others to go in first.

"That depends on how closely Nessa is watching..." the little woman rolled her eyes with a laugh and went back to her I.D checking.

Eric offered his arm to Bo, who took it with an air of theatricality as they descended the stairs. Winston and Adam took a side of Sookie each and escorted her into the dimly lit basement where the vibration of the base made them all a little tingly. With confident strides, Bo led them around the edges of the dance floor to a little door at the side of the bar.

"Bo..."

"Winston," she whined back at him sarcastically. When he pouted at her she sighed and relented. "Alright. Go. Stay inside the club."

"Like I'd wanna leave." He turned flamboyantly on his heel and headed back towards the door. "You two coming?"

Adam and Sookie looked at Bo and Eric questioningly. "If you want too..." Adam was already shaking his head and Sookie looked unsure.

"Come on yankie." Winston grabbed her arm. "We'll skank up the dance floor till the old farts are done discussing."

"I dunno if I should..." She stammered

"You're reasonably safe in here, the bouncers are all shifters. They wont allow any bullshit." Bo told her.

Sookie looked at Eric who had managed so far to resist the urge to say anything, knowing that if he did open his mouth it would be to demand she stay right next to him at all times. That wouldn't get him very far, so he said nothing. "I..."

"Tall, dark and dick-headed can come find us when he's ready." Winston said snarkily. "Mah woman and I, will be on le dance floor."

"You sure you don't want to go with them?" Bo asked Adam gently as he watched Sookie and Winston disappear back through the door.

"I thought we agreed I wasn't going to stay in the background forever..." Adam reminded her. "I have to know what's going on, Bo."

"Alright... let's go see Lern." She led them to the door at the end of the hallway and pushed it open without knocking. It didn't seem to matter, the hugely muscular man sitting behind the desk didn't seem at all surprised to see them.

"Bodicea," He gushed, standing and pushing the table forward, rather than the chair back. "Most beautiful Sheriff, beloved, august mistress! You've come to your senses and have decided to run away with me!" he lumbered towards her, his clubbed left foot giving him a lopsided stride, and scooped her up in his arms, hugging her tightly while her feet dangled a good foot off the ground.

"Aldis!" She laughed, "Aldis Lern, you put me down!" She slapped playfully at his chest. "You're wife will have your hide if she finds out we've eloped."

"Only because she not get you first. Saucy bitch." The comically huge man put her down and leaned back against the desk to take the weight off his clubbed foot. "She took an unpleasant phone call from Jedda, other night... Something about a failure of the network...?"

"What am I supposed to think, Aldis, when I'm gone for less than a week, supposedly on secret business and when I get back the government is upside down, inside out and glamored all to hell?"

"I never let you down Boo..." Aldis said, his broad, flat face somber and serious. "I'm telling you, we not slacked off one wit in a hundred years. Whatever happened, it come outta nowhere, and it bypass _**all**___the usual steps. If it hadn't we'd have known!"

"I was hoping you wouldn't say that," Bo admitted slowly. "Lern this is my brother, Eric. Sheriff of Area 5 in the US, and this is my progeny, Adam."

Aldis Lern's bushy eyebrows rose a good two inches as he looked down at Adam, who was dressed in a pair of tight black dress pants and a black dress shirt with silver buttons. "Progeny, huh...? You never showed no interest in makin' babies before, Boo."

Bo held her arm out and Adam came forward so she could wrap it around his shoulders. "Adam was too exceptional to pass up." She said, smiling at him tenderly.

"He a looker, I'll give you that... course it obvious as sheep shit on the living room floor that the fairy's the one what dressed him."

"Clothes all look the same in a pile on the floor," She shrugged. "And Winston dresses___**me**_ most days..."

"Now, I could,"

"Show some respect..." Eric interrupted the leering giant sternly.

Aldis looked him up and down and laughed. "You're an old one, yes? OoohhHHooo..." He wriggled his meaty fingers at Eric in mock mystical style. "I aint seen you before, big fella. One hundred years I run this network for my Boo, I know who you are. Not seen your face though, oh no, not when werewolves make trouble, not when Bunyip in Warragamba dam. Not even when maker died... no brother come!" He stood to his fill height, his head nearly touching the high ceiling and glared down at Eric. "Boo _**my**_ sheriff, _**my**_ family."

"Aldis please..." Bo sighed and put her hand lightly on his grotesquely over-muscled arm. "Eric came to help, because I asked. Tell me what you know."

"Big bullshit going on Boo. Rudd gone all sorts of nuts. No clue why, but looks like a mind-fuck to me. Gillard had to kick him, whole party going to pot, then, days later, _**she**_ start goin' brain soft." He held up his hand when Bo opened her mouth to ask a question. "Buuuuuut, we got's the date for election, and the polling data. Plus I got people placing every vampire in the country. We find."

"We can't cover everything, Aldis, I know that. Air ports and cruises are one thing, but the coast is huge and we can't watch all of it." She smiled up at him. "I know you do a good job. There's no one better."

"'cept me." A light, lilting voice with a gentle Irish accent sounded from behind them.

Standing in the doorway was a small pixie of a woman with short unruly red hair and bright blue eyes. She wore a short green velvet dress and strappy leather sandals.

"Nessa! I thought you'd be out giving the blow-hards the evil eye by now." Bo greeted her.

"We have bouncers for that, don't ya know? Why be wealthy if you can't pay someone else to do your bitch work? You picking on my gentleman?"

"Course not Ness... I'm just..." she looked at the smaller woman helplessly. "I'm impatient and pissed off."

Nessa shrugged, "happens to the best of us. The very best most of all. Any who, I came back to let you know that maypole of yours is going to slut his way through my patrons if someone doesn't get out there and get him under control... I Understand he had a run in with Milly..." Ness sneered out the name.

"There was no avoiding it... he thinks he owns this city, and he knows almost enough to make it look like he does. Just don't let him get into any trouble, will you?"

"Got a boy on it... buff little thing, should keep him busy till you want to leave. Someone might want to rescue the blond though, she looks like she's ready to pop. Undone by the crowd. Happens sometimes."

Eric was already gone by the time Bo looked for him.

"He's always been like that." Bo said, even as Nessa eyed Adam up and down with a slightly predatory gaze. "That's mine, Nessa." Bo said protectively. "You've already cornered the best man in the world, you must leave some for the rest of us."

.

Sookie couldn't get into it, no matter how hard Winston tried to drag her up onto his high. She had trouble keeping her walls in place with so much energy floating around, and it didn't help that fully half the patroons didn't seem to be entirely human. Some were obviously vampires, but the blank spaces where their thoughts should be weren't comforting, just another distraction. Some thought in growls and images, and Sookie assumed they were shifters of various types.

Having found a dance partner with more enthusiasm, Winston had slowly boogied away from her and into the center of the room. He danced with the single minded attention of one who was intent on forcing every negative thing out of his mind and wallowing in the high excitement of the moment. Sookie couldn't even begin to follow him there. When she looked up from her own shoes, Eric was making his way through the thronging, bouncing crowd, which melted from his path and closed in again behind him seemingly without thought.

He offered her his hand, and she was shaken enough to take it, even though she was still angry with him for being an ass and upset at the idea that he might really be in love with someone else. They'd never talked about 'love'... Bill said it all the time, and Sookie had let herself become lulled by the implied stability in that word. When Eric was slower to say it, she'd thought it was a good sign... no more diving in stupidly until you're drowning, but Eric's obvious feelings for Bo and his protectiveness towards her were starting to undo Sookie in a way she wasn't prepared for. Turns out just because she wasn't saying something, didn't mean it wasn't happening.

Once again the crowd parted around them like water as Eric led her back towards that little door, through which was the relative quiet of the hallway. "Are you alright?" He asked, and his voice was that same gentle rumble he sometimes used in the bedroom that always undid her.

"I'm fine," she managed after a moment, desperate to maintain the upper hand, to keep her voice steady even though she was on the verge of losing it. "It's just loud out there."

"I understand such clubs must be difficult for you," he said, noting her tone and closed of body language and standing back. He told himself it was to give her space and try to tempt her to open up, but he couldn't be sure that it wasn't simply that he was stung by her distance. "Do you wish to join us?"

"I..."she looked at him, wide eyed, unable to articulate or even coherently think about the tumult inside her mind. Finally, she gave up, "you're in love with Bodicea... aren't you?" She asked in such a small voice that Eric thought it possible that without his vampire hearing he might have missed it.

"Sookie..."

"Please just tell me," it came out in a rush, not harshly demanding as she'd wanted but soft and desperate.

"There is no simple answer for you." He told her quietly, maintaining the distance between them, though it made him uncomfortable to do so. "We have known each other for hundreds of years... her life is as important to me as my own," he looked at her seriously, "but so is yours."

"Do you wonna be with her?" She asked, unable to meet his eyes.

"When we were younger I did," he admitted, "I wanted it more than anything... except Godric's happiness." He reached out and took her hand, and Sookie didn't have the strength to pull it back, convinced she was about to get dumped. "Our time was five hundred years ago, Sookie. Bo will be a part of my life forever, no matter what may happen. I have to trust, to... hope, that you are able to understand that. That you can trust me... I will not betray you. Not for anything."


	9. Snatch and Grab 09

"I..." Sookie swallowed hard and looked up at him as bravely as she could manage. "I don' wanna be the thing that's in your way... you should be with the person you love... "

He took both her hands and kissed them lightly. "I should be with the woman who's good for me." He smiled, "And the one I'm good for. Bo and I have already agreed, we're better for each other this way. As family..." He stopped, trying to find a way to explain it.

"You hate that Winston it so close to her... you're so jealous."

"I suppose I am, but not the way you think." He sighed and leaned against the wall beside her, looking down at her face. "Sometimes, when things go wrong, or right... you reach instinctively for your lover. In those times, Sookie Stackhouse, all I think about is you. You have a brother... dolt though he may be, and sometimes when something happens you'll run to him first. Before you think of me." He sighed, letting his head thunk against the wall, rueful at admitting his own childish feelings. "For hundreds of years, at those times... Bo would only think of me, and I of her. If Winston were her lover, there would be no tension between us at all..."

"You're... you're afraid she'll replace you?" Sookie asked in surprise.

"Not intellectually. I know in my mind that a human who's known her less than a decade couldn't replace hundreds of years of trust... but you know as well as I do that knowing something in your head doesn't always translate to knowledge in the heart..." He raised an eyebrow, looking down at her. "Would you really have stepped aside for her...?"

Sookie sniffed and nodded, squeezing his hands tightly in her little fists. "I'd'av had to hate you after, though..." They both laughed, each trying to hide the slight edge of hysteria at how close they'd come to ruining themselves. As the laughter tailed off, Eric bent down and kissed her, shyly at first but with growing confidence. "Eric!" Sookie stopped him and Eric sighed, fearing that they were about to launch into another round of relationship roulette. "You will make things right with Winston, wont you...?"

"If I promise to make things right with the fairy, will you let me bring you to screaming orgasm now?"

"Eric!" Sookie hissed, giggling and looking around frantically to see if anyone had overheard them. After a moment, looking back at his cheeky, adoring face, she put on her best theatrical mask (which was hopelessly over the top) and sighed. "I suppose, if I must."

"You must." He scooped her up easily and started testing doors until he found a staff bathroom.

Inside he sat her up on the bench beside the sinks and dove at her neck, nipping and kissing while she clung to him and giggled helplessly. "Eric! We're in a bathroom!"

"I love how observant you are," he growled against her neck. His hands were already sneaking their way up her calves, his fingers felt lightly ticklish but ohhh so seductive and irresistible. "How about I give you something else to notice..."

Sookie gasped when his fingers brushed over her underwear with just enough pressure to drive her crazy. She bit her lip and gripped his shoulder with one hand while the other went looking for his chin, forcing him up to look at her. His eyes were dark and turbulent, reflecting the storm that was building behind them. He'd told her things he hadn't really meant to, admitted things he wasn't proud of, and now his ego was trying to salvage something from this encounter. Sookie saw all this as clearly as if she could read the undead mind.

"Eric..." One word to sum up the indefinable quality that had always been evident in their relationship. A single word to convey her own fear, fear she knew she'd probably never be able to banish completely from her mind. The only way she had to tell him how desperate she was not to have him disappear into his macho persona... she needed him to be there, really be there...

She was bizarrely used to the unnaturally cool touch of his hands, so when he cupped her face gently there was no chill shock to it. Slowly and deliberately she slipped her legs forward and wrapped them around his hips while tugging him down so she could wrap her arms around his shoulders. That cinematic slow-motion effect seemed to take over and Sookie thought it might have taken an hour for his lips to close the distance to hers. She didn't realize it, but Eric could feel that she was trembling.

Sookie moaned, and Eric let his hands slide down her neck and over her shoulders until he could wrap them around her to pull her tight against his body. The deep, distant rumbling that came from his chest always reminded her of thunder, like there was a tempest inside him and only his muscular frame could keep it from escaping and destroying everything.

Not needing to breathe gave Eric the power to make her see spots, make hear head floaty and empty from a powerful combination of arousal and oxygen deprivation. Everything else in the world was so far away... this weird political intrigue, the revelation of how tenuous and volatile vampire politics could be, all of it seemed vague and distant... until he groaned softly against her lips.

"I love you, Sookie." Once he'd said it everything felt terrifyingly close, real and dangerous. The only thing that kept her from slamming on the breaks was the fact that he'd rolled his hips forward against her a moment later, making her moan and her eyes flutter closed.

It was slower than she was used too, at least from Eric, but for some reason it didn't really seem all that out of character. They were still in a bathroom after all. A part of her felt guilty, even mean, that she didn't say it back when it was so obvious what he wanted to hear. She felt it, God only knew how much she felt it, but for all her momentary confidence before, she was still in the grip of the same old fears. She cursed Bill in her mind for making her this way, why couldn't she have met Eric first...?

.

When Sookie and Eric fronted up at Aldis' office, they were faced with a room full of supernaturals who could see, smell, or otherwise sense that they'd just been... indiscreet, in a bathroom. Adam politely averted his eyes, choosing instead to divide his attention between avoiding Nessa's gaze and watching Bo flipping through Aldis' reports. Sookie was grateful for that, though Nessa kept giving her suggestive smiles and Aldis was openly waggling his eyebrows at her. She was mortified.

"What's this gap here?" Bo asked suddenly.

"Hm?" Aldis tore his eyes away from Sookie to look down at the Prime minister's schedule. "What you meaning?"

"Here." She pointed to two listings. The first from five P.M till six thirty, the next starting at seven thirty. "What was she doing in that gap?"

"Dinner?" Aldis said.

"Nope, she's got dinner penciled in here during the seven thirty meeting."

"Dead spot in itinerary, time for break?"

Bo shook her head. "This woman doesn't have time to take breaks. She was sharp and desperate. She'd just inherited a party in a shambles, she wasn't taking any breaks. No, something happened in that bracket, she just wasn't willing to write it down." She looked up at Aldis seriously. "Find out what it was. I want everyone on it."

The huge man nodded and shuffled out of the room with Nessa close behind. The tiny woman stopped in the doorway and looked back at Bo. "He'll be mortified he missed this," she said softly.

"I know... he's been perfect for a hundred years Nessa, I'm not going to replace him just because he doesn't know how a Welsh woman thinks." Bo gave her an encouraging smile. "Everything will be fine. He's not on thin ice."

The tiny woman seemed mollified and gave a curt nod before hurrying after her husband. Adam waited until the door closed before moving over to Bo's side and looking down at the file on the desk. "Do you really think it happened there?"

"I think something happened there, and anything she was too uncomfortable to write in her itinerary is something we should be looking into." She told him, looking across the room at Eric and Sookie. She noticed them holding hands and the slightly guilty look in Sookie's eyes. "That's better, if nothing else." She mumbled.

"What are you going to do about the human?" Eric asked, ignoring the slightly uncomfortable air in the room.

"Who?" Bo asked with a raised eyebrow.

"The one from the airport, Winston's little play mate. It's going to be trouble..." Eric's eyes flashed in a way that suggested violence and Bo sighed, knowing he was probably right.

"I'm going to put it off. I'd rather not have to chain his feet and throw him in the harbor." She allowed herself to lean to the side against Adam, who straightened his shoulders. "Ideally I'd like Winston to make the decision, but he's not there yet."

"Your training him up for something," Eric said suspiciously. "You're planning to turn him, aren't you?"

"No." She said firmly, heading off all argument. "Winston deserves better than that." she sighed and shook her head. "It's not something to be worried about right now. For right now, Milton doesn't seem to be involved in this directly. At least I hope he's not. He's a weasel and an idiot but he's never been ruthless enough or ambitious enough for something like this. He's too scared if nothing else... with any luck we can be out of here within the week and I can put him off for another few years."

"How long will it take Quazimodo to hunt down the information we need?" Eric asked, changing the subject.

"Please just be nice tonight Eric, I've got too much on my plate to run interference between your attitude and the rest of the world." She stood and looked up at him. "I promise, I will find you someone to kill."

Eric gave a short laugh and let go of Sookie's hand to wrap an arm around Bo's shoulders and press their foreheads together. "Make it something big and I promise I'll behave."

"Hey, I'll find you a God damn Auroch if that's what it'll take!"

Sookie leaned towards Adam, who had moved to one side to give them room. "What's an Auroch?"She asked softly.

"I think it's a really big cow." He flashed her a cheeky little grin, like a boy who hadn't paid attention to his homework. He took her hand and gently lead her to the far end of the room while Eric and Bo talked softly. "You worked everything out?" He asked.

"Everything? No... not by a long way, but," she blushed helplessly under the pressure of his honest gaze. "I think we'll be OK. You know, eventually."

"Ah, the magic of 'eventually'... 'someday'..." He kissed her hand lightly and she caught again that look in his eyes. The one Godric had, which spoke of such sadness and loneliness, but hope as well.

"You look really nice, Adam," Sookie told him with a gentle smile.

"Thank you. The pants are... restraining."

Sookie laughed, "maybe, but they make you're butt look nice."

They both laughed then and when Eric and Bo turned they wore similar expressions of amusement and happiness at seeing the rapidly growing friendship between the telepath and the overseer.

"Aldis wont be long," Bo told them. "He's the best. We should be able to leave fairly soon, get some sleep and run it up tomorrow night. Anyone know what happened to Winston?"

"He was dancing with someone," Sookie told her.

"Right, Nessa said she'd sent someone out to keep an eye on him. I'll go drag him off the dance floor, stay here and wait for Aldis. I shouldn't be long." Once she was gone, Eric leaned over the table to stare down at the Prime Minister's schedule while Adam and Sookie stood about feeling less than vital to the whole business.

"Nessa!" Bo called to the tiny woman who was tending bar. "Where's 'Tony?"

The pixie-like woman pointed to the center of the crush of bodies on the dance floor with a knowing smile and went back to her customers. With a resigned sigh, Bo set her shoulders and started to struggle through the press of bodies. It was well within her power to shove her way there, or indeed to fly, but she was loath to stir up a fuss in Aldis' bar. As time passed however, and she cross crossed the crowd three times without locating him, she started to become worried. Finally, having convinced herself that he wasn't where he should be, she hurried up to the door and grabbed the bouncer.

"The little man I came in with, has he left this way?" She demanded. "I'll fucking kill him..."

"Not this way, Sheriff, but there is a small rear entrance. We get the beer delivered back there. Duck back to the bar, they'll show you." He told her, then turned back to the jostling line.

Bo flew back down the stairs, her feet hardly touching them and shoved her way through the crowd to the bar where Nessa was still serving.

"He's gone! Where's the back door?" She yelled.

The little red-head blinked at her stupidly for a moment before abandoning the bar and hurrying to show Bo the third door down the rear corridor which opened into a wet, dingy ally. "There's something..." Bo launched herself over a massive dumpster and landed over the form of the pretty boy Nessa had assigned to take care of Winston. His neck's unnatural angle told Bo faster than his non-existent heartbeat that she wasn't going to be able to get any answers out of him. "DAMNIT! Mother fucker!" She kicked the huge bin and is skidded across the ally and bounced off the wall in a shower of brick and mortar. "Get Eric, now."

Nessa disappeared, tears in her eyes and utterly terrified. Moments later Adam and Eric appeared in the doorway with Sookie protectively between them. "I can smell him, he was here! Damn it he was right here!" Bo screamed. "I shouldn't have let him out of my sight. I knew he was bored and he'd have been miserable in the meeting... shit. SHIT!" She stormed around the ally, kicking at unoffending objects and snarling in impotent rage. "I'll tear this fucking city apart," she hissed.

.

"What the hell did you go and do that for?" Winston heard an angry and frightened voice hiss. His eyes were covered and his hands bound behind his back, but from the bounce and the noise he assumed he was on the back seat of a car.

"He said throw her off, this will throw her about as far off as she can be."

Milton! He was sure of it, no one else could sound so certain and winy at the same time! Jesus, Bo was going to blow a gasket. Winston was fairly sure that by the time all this was over, he was going to be the only person in this car who was still alive.

"Trust me. She'll be too worried about trying to find him to pay any attention to politics. She's sentimental that way, she'll chase him all over the country if she has to." Milton was saying.

"Well what the hell do you plan on doing with him now? Harvest his organs?" The unknown voice asked.

"Don't be stupid. By the time this is over I wont need them... and I've negotiated him into my payment... everything will be fine. Things couldn't have come together more perfectly if I'd planned them."

"You better hope this works, Milton... Bodicea doesn't have a reputation for being forgiving. If all this goes south she'll have your guts for garters. An' I bet she'd wear 'em too!"

At that, Winston was terribly tempted to smile, but forced it down. Bo would come, she'd kick ass and get him out of this. All he had to do was keep his head together. He could do that. Stay cool. Don't antagonize anyone and keep your shit. Once he'd got a grip on his own fear, he couldn't help feeling a twinge of pity for Milton, the poor simple fool.

**.**

Eric was moving to stop her, but Sookie grabbed his hand and held him back as Adam stepped in front of Bo and took a hold of her shoulders. "Let him do it..." she whispered urgently. She didn't know why, but she had a feeling that this was important, for Adam and for Bo.

"Bodicea," Adam had squared his shoulders and looked more composed, more settled within him self than Bo had ever seen. "We'll get him back." He told her firmly. "You have to stop. I need you. I need you calm, I need you focused."

"He's just a boy..." Bo whispered brokenly after a pause, her shoulders sagging and her eyes tinting pink.

"Wherever he is, whoever has him, is right now being regaled by his nuanced narration of exactly what we will do to them when we come for him." Adam told her. "Winston believes in you. He knows your coming. Eric," Adam turned, "do a quick fly over. If you find nothing don't waste time on a detailed search, just see if anything stands out. Sookie, go to Aldis and tell him we need the footage for the club and anything he's got in this alley." Both followed his instructions without question.

"He's so little..." Bo started but Adam shook her firmly.

"Stop. You can recriminate once we have him back. Think Bo, who would take him?"

"I have no idea! With all this shit going on, I have no idea what's connected to what. This could all be about me, about you, about him somehow... hell for all I know it could all be about Eric! I've let too much get away from me."

"Come inside. You can't track a car through a capitol, we need to find them some other way. The video will tell us where to start. Until then, we need to know what Aldis found out about the Prime ministers doing's while you were gone." He said firmly.

Inside, the huge vampire was poring over a computer which had half a dozen camera feeds on the screen. "There." He rumbled, pointing a thick finger at the image of someone leading Winston and his dance partner towards the back door. "Why would he go with?" Aldis asked, though he looked utterly miserable.

"To stop a massacre, look." Bo pointed to the heavy, automatic pistol on the unknown man's belt. "He probably didn't think they'd get him out of the building. Damn it! He trusted us to protect him!" Aldis looked stricken, unable to meet Bo's eyes. "It's not your fault, Aldis. I'm responsible for him, not you..."

"I responsible for all us, Boo. Got too comfortable, too relaxed... man come in and took him, took your boy right from my own house!" Sookie was shocked to find a vampire looking so vulnerable and upset. She was sure that none of the vampires who worked for Eric would ever let themselves be seen that way by their sheriff, even less by some human they didn't know! Bo obviously ran a completely different kind of ship.

"We can all of us flog ourselves into unconsciousness later." Adam said more firmly than he'd ever said anything. "Find that man, Aldis."

The misshapen giant of a man looked at Adam curiously for a moment and then nodded, swinging his great head back to the computer screen and refraining from commenting on the fact that Bo's supposed newly changed child was handing out orders. Aldis was no one's fool. "Can do. Got PM's shit all sorted. Shifter be tracking down a goffer should be able to give us some what's what."

"He doesn't mean a real goffer, does he?" Sookie whispered to Eric.

"I doubt it, I believe it's a contraction. Go-for, a fetch-and-carry." Eric whispered back. "Australian's adore mangling the English language even more than American's do." He shook his head.

Eric bustled her over to a corner of the room out of the way and looked down at her seriously, his huge shoulders hunched over so he could look her in the eye.

"Eric?"

"I don't like what's happening here, Sookie. Things here could become very complicated very quickly... do you still have the vial I have you in Bon Temps?" When Sookie nodded slowly he seemed to relax. "All right, I'll fill it for you as soon as we get out of here. I want you to keep it with you." He cupped her face in his palm gently.

"I will..."


	10. Oh Brother, where the Fuck art thou? 10

The tension in the room was heavy and oppressive. Sookie stayed as quiet as possible and tried very hard not to be in anyone's way. Bo alternated between staring at the documents Lern had brought in and having to be physically restrained from breaking the furniture. Eric watched her closely, he seemed able to see the tension building inside her and was always ready when she snapped. Adam nibbled on his thumbnail seemingly unable to fix his gaze on any one thing for more than a few moments. Finally he twitched and turned to look at Sookie as though noticing her for the first time.

"Sookie... how far away can you hear?" He asked.

"Ah, I'm not really sure, we've never tested it... to be honest I'm usually tryin' harder to keep people out than let 'em in." She said shyly.

Eric moved to her side and Bo turned regarding her hopefully. "When the Fellowship of the sun were holding you hostage, you called out for help, didn't you?" Eric asked her gently. "To the boy who came to tell Bill where you were..."

"I... I didn' know you knew about that..."

"I had no interest in the boy then, and none in him now. If all I wanted was to read minds, there are easier, more... controllable ways than to chase a southern girl." He gave her a small cheeky smile.

"But then why...?"

Eric shrugged. "Because I liked you."

"Please Sookie," Bo said urgently, "please, will you try to hear him?"

Sookie looked at the frightened Sheriff helplessly. "Of course I'll try I jus', I don't want you to get to hopeful, OK? I've never done anythin' like this before."

"I understand."

"I don't know how to do this." Sookie said with her eyes closed and an intense frown, " I don't know how to separate him out from everyone else..."

"He'll be thinking about me," Bo told her quietly. "He'll be wondering where I am, why I haven't found him yet... just look for someone thinking about me." Adam put his hand on her shoulder as she blinked back angry tears at her own uselessness.

Sookie took a deep breath and pushed outwards with her mind, trying to screen out all the drunk people in the night club, all the taxi drivers and convenience store clerks... everyone except... -_Bo__is__going__to__kick__your__ass__you__stupid__back-birth__hick.__What__the__fuck__are__you__thinking,__man?-_

"Oh my God!" Sookie gasped. "I can hear him!"

"Is he hurt? Is he scared?" Bo demanded, starting towards Sookie, but Adam held her back gently.

"No, he's... he seems to know who has him. I think he feels sorry for them." She held up her hand trying to keep the others quiet while she listened.

_-This__is__the__dumbest__thing__you've__ever__done.__She__is__so__going__to__kill__you__this__time,__she's__gonna__give__you__cement__boots__and__throw__you__in__the__harbor...__Jesus__Christ__Milton...-_

"Milton! That Milton guy has him!" Sookies eyes popped open.

"I'll kill him!" Bo hissed.

"That's what Winston's thinking..."Sookie told her gently. Bo gave a soft sob and leaned against Adam's side. "He's not scared, Bo... he knows you're coming for him."

"Can you see where he is?" Eric asked.

Sookie shook her head, "I can't get images from him... It could be the way he thinks or it could jus' be because he's too far away, I dunno. I'm gonna need him to think something that give it away."

"Can you talk to him like you did he boy in Dallas that Eric mentioned, can you at least give him the impression that we're coming?" Bo half begged.

"I'm sorry, I..." Sookie shook her head sadly. "Barry was like me, but I can't talk to normal people, it jus' doesn't work..."

"It's alright Sookie, You can only do what you can do." Eric squeezed her shoulder. "Just keep listening, we'll get something."

"Aldis, start searching for property that Milton owns, maybe something will stand out." Bo said, but the big man was already limping towards a wall of filing cabinets.

"Got's a file on 'im Boo. That little bitch all nothin' but trouble." He pulled out a manilla folder and handed it to her.

"You're brilliant, you know that?"  
"Yeeeah."

_-I__can't__believe__you__bought__this__place...__what__a__kitschy__den__of__emaciated__bimbo__twinks...-_

Sookie screwed up her face, "what is it?" Eric asked.

"He's arrived somewhere, it's somewhere he knows. He called it a kitschy den of... of emaciated bimbo twinks. What the hell does that mean?"

Bo snapped her fingers, "Club mud! It's a gay bar on the other side of the river, the whole place stinks of cheap cologne and lube. Milton bought it last year, he likes looking at the half naked young men who frequent the place trolling for ass." She was already heading for the door when Aldis moved to bar her way, filling the doorway with his massive misshapen body.

"It be mornin' Boo. Too late to go now. Still gotta run down the politics too..."

"I don't care about politics, Aldis... move..." She said carefully.

"Stand your ground." Eric moved between them and looked down at her. "What good are we to him if we burn? Do you think he wants to watch you die?"

"I have to get him back Eric, you don't understand, I'm responsible for him!" She made to barge past him, but Eric was bigger and stronger and he grabbed her arms and held her still.

"Like hell I don't." He took hold of her face with one hand and forced her to look him in the eye. "_I__am__responsible__for__you,__little__sister..._" he said to her in Welsh. "_From__the__first__night__you__woke,__gasping__and__crying__in__Godric's__arms,__to__the__true__death.__I__understand__perfectly..._" Bo looked up at him helplessly. "It will be alright."

"We could assign some shifters to finish ferreting out the gap in the prime ministers itinerary during the day, and make the decision when we wake about how the approach everything." Adam suggested.

"I hate this," Bo breathed. "I hate it."

"Everything will be alright, Bo... Come on, try to get some sleep..." Adam led her after Aldis who took them down into the basement.

Eric looked at Sookie carefully. "Can you still hear him?"

"Not clearly... I think I'm only getting' it clearly when he yells." Eric raised an eyebrow, so Sookie tried to explain. "All the, the background stuff that goes on in someone's head, that's like talking. If I'm in the same room with people, it's all mushed up together an' it's hard to keep it out. Sometimes though, you think somethin' really clear. Like you'll see something you want and you'll think 'I want that'... that's more like yellin'... am I explainin' this badly?"

"No, I think I understand." He slid his arms around her shoulders. "I sometimes think things might be easier between us, if you could just read my mind." He said softly as he gazed down at her face. "Then you'd know..."

Sookie swallowed hard, unable to tear her eyes away. "Know what...?"

He shot her a small smirk. "That I think about you constantly. That even when I can't speak plainly with you, even when I have to be hard and distant... I am always thinking of you. Of what will keep you safe..." He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to hers. "If you could hear me, then you'd understand..."

"You could always just say it," she suggested softly. Truth be told she wasn't sure she was really ready for him too though.

Eric shook his head. "Anyone can say anything they like, in the past we've both been told any number of things that weren't precisely true." Sookie couldn't argue with that.

.

Trying to flex his wrists to get some wriggle room in the cable ties that bound his hands behind his back, just left Winston frustrated and bleeding. He'd managed to tear his skin with all his fidgeting but the ties were no looser for his efforts. He sat on a plain wooden chair with each foot tied to one of the front legs.

"I feel like 'gay kidnap victim 2' on fucking CSI." He hissed to himself.

"Don't wriggle around so much, I'm not going to hurt you, so relax." Milton had apparently been leaning against the wall behind him, silently, for the past twenty minutes just watching him struggle.

"I'm not interested in your little BDSM fantasies Milton! What the hell are you thinking? You know there's no way I'm going to be able to talk Bo out of killing you now, you know that right?" What surprised him most was that he did actually care. Milton was a stupid, spoiled mummy's-boy with self control issues, but he didn't deserve to die.

"Bo's not going to be a problem for much longer."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Winston demanded and began struggling again.

"By this time next week it's all going to be over..." Milton sighed and moved into his line of sight. He looked terrible. Huge dark purple bags swelled under his eyes as though he'd been beaten, but the rest of his skin was sallow and hung loosely from his skull. "You're probably going to be pretty pissed at me by the end, but there's no avoiding that now. Bo was part of the deal..."

"Deal? What the hell are you talking about? What are you doing?"

"Oceania is going to have a new sheriff. Someone who's ambition goes a bit further than just keeping the peace..." Milton sighed. "It's a get on board or get ploughed under sort of a situation, Tony."

"I swear to God Milton, if you hurt her I'm gonna kill you! I'll tear your disease-ridden corpse apart with my bare hands!" He was struggling hard now, bleeding freely from where the ties cut into his wrists and ankles, but he barely felt it. Winston had never been particularly brave, and never even vaguely strong, but before Bo, he'd never been loved either. "Let me go," he ground out. "Whatever it is you're doing, we can still stop it, let me go. **Let****me****go**!"

"I'm sorry, Tony. Really. But there's no way to overthrow her without killing her, and I wont get paid until she's gone."

"Paid? Milton you're rolling in God-damn money!"

"I didn't say anything about money..."

.

Sookie spent the day alternating between trying to sleep and trying to stay awake. It seemed that once she'd managed to find Winston, her mind was automatically trying to seek him out the moment there was no other noise to occupy her. She gave up trying to sleep and instead sat in Aldis' office with a pen and a pad of paper, frantically scribbling down every clear thought she heard from Winston's mind. For the most part it was all variations on a theme; Milton is an idiot, Milton's going to die, the club was a dump. Then, about an hour before sunset...

_-I__swear__to__God__Milton,__if__you__hurt__her__I'm__gonna__kill__you!-_Sookie clutched at her head and let out a short scream as the full force of Winston's sudden fear and rage broadsided her. _-I'll__tear__you__apart__with__my__bare__hands!-_ It became indecipherable after that. Incoherent impressions of rage, random expletives and oaths on various idols that if anything happened to Bo, he'd kill Milton. With effort, Sookie managed to pull herself together and start to sift through the mess in Winston's head until what she heard changed sharply. _-__Oakeshott?__What__the,-_then it stopped.

"**Eric**!" She screamed as she ran barefoot down into the basement to hammer on the dark hardwood coffin Eric had gone to rest in. "Eric! Wake up, wake up, **wake****up**!"

Inside the coffin, the hollow thudding couldn't have meant less to the sleeping vampire. He was far beyond the reach of sound or vibration, such things had no affect on him... but he could feel her heartbeat and her fear. The lid flipped up when he pressed the catch and he sat up smoothly.

"Sookie?" He wrapped his arms around her when she clutched at his shoulders.

"They knocked him out! Eric they... I think they hit him with something, but he said a name, he saw someone before... we need to wake Bo."

"Alright," he jumped out of the coffin an gestured towards the far end of the room. "Stay back, blood can wake blood but she'll be disoriented..."

Sookie nodded and watched in fascination even through her terror, as Eric forced the lid of Bo's coffin open and leaned over her cold, stiff body. It didn't even occur to her to question the fact that she'd been able to wake him... He seemed to breathe into Bo's mouth and hissed something in a language Sookie didn't understand.

"_Come__back__Bodicea.__" _He called softly in Welsh, "_come__back__little__sister.__"_ He grabbed her shoulders when the Sheriff sat up swinging her arms, looking for something to hit. "Hey, hey! It's me! Bo!" She blinked at him stupidly for a moment and coughed a few times.

"What...? What is it?"

"Sookie heard something, a name."

Bo looked to Sookie expectantly. "He said Oakeshott, an' he was surprised. Really surprised to see them there... then I think they knocked him out."

Bodicea started swearing and was up, out of the coffin and up the stairs faster than Sookie could see. Eric went after her only slightly slower, leaving Sookie, dazed and confused, to bring up the rear. When she got to the top of the stairs she could hear Bo in the office. She was swearing and it sounded to Sookie like she was tearing the room apart.

"Son-of-a-bitch! **Nessa**! Get me Abbott on the phone and do it now!" Bo ordered in a shrill voice bordering on hysteria. "It's all connected, Christ it's all tied up together somehow."

"Bo, stop. Talk to me." Sookie heard Eric say. "Who is Oakeshott?"

"He's an independent! A politician, there's no way this isn't all connected. I've got two glamoured prime ministers in a row and now an independent who's in on the kidnapping of my personal assistant. Fuck knows what Milton thinks he's doing... he must know I'll kill him for this, what could they possibly offer him...?" She was rambling.

When Sookie peeked around the door, Eric had backed Bo into a corner and was gripping her hands tightly. "We know where they are, we can leave as soon as the sun sinks... Nessa, put down the phone and go wake Aldis." The tiny red-headed woman slipped past Sookie in the hallways, her eyes wide and frightened. "It's alright Sookie, come in."

One small step at a time, Sookie slipped into the room. "I... I wrote down everythin' that I heard him think while you were asleep. He dozed for a while, but he wasn't scared at all until about twenty minutes ago..." she pointed at the pad.

Bo's eyes flitted over the pad, Eric stood close behind her and read over her shoulder. Unlike Sookie, he was prepared when Bo's hands flew to her mouth and she spun, sobbing into his arms. He held her tightly while she screamed and sobbed into his chest, shaking with rage and remorse. Sookie bit her bottom lip and wondered if perhaps she'd made a mistake writing everything down.

"Sookie, go to the basement and get Adam, he'll be waking up now. Tell him what's going on." Eric said over Bo's head. "We'll be leaving in just a moment."

Sookie fled.

"He wants to protect me," Bo sobbed once Sookie was gone. "Jesus Christ, Eric, he actually wants to protect me..."

"You inspire it in people. We all want to protect you."

She looked up at him, her face smeared with blood. "I have to get him back, Eric."

"We will. Within the hour he'll be back here, painting your nails and making me want to strangle him. Now, talk to me about Oakeshott..."

.

Rob Oakeshott stood with his hand's on his hips and his usually handsome face set in an angry scowl. One expensive shoe tapping in agitation on the hardwood flood. "You sodding idiot!" He hissed at last, glaring in turn at the unconscious man tied to the chair, and Milton who couldn't meet his gaze. "now you'll have to kill him!"

"What? No! Why?" Milton stammered.

Oakeshott crossed the distance between them at vampire speed and grasped Milton by the throat. At this distance Milton could see that the MP had covered his sallow skin and red-rimmed eyes with make-up. It seemed he wasn't immune to the bleeds, he just covered the evidence... "He's seen my face. He knows I'm here and he will run screaming to the Sheriff at the first possible opportunity. That woman is hundreds of years old, and God only knows about that great hulking monstrosity she brought back with her from the states! Everything depends on taking her by surprise, Milton. Without surprise, I'm vampire jam, and you're dinner." Milton trembled under his hands in a way that made Oakeshott cringe. "Ungh, you're a disgusting little coward." He dropped him negligently and wiped his fingers insultingly on his jacket. "You're only use lies in the fact that this poor deluded little bugger once thought you were worth something. That gave you an in... without the fickle finger of a fairy's fancy, you'd be a nothing, nowhere..."


	11. Shadow of Ancient Demons 11

When Sookie rapped lightly on the lid of Adam's coffin, it popped open immediately, and Adam looked up at her curiously. "Are you alright? You look..."

"Bo's gone sortof crazy." She cut him off. "I heard Winston think the name Oakeshott and now he's been knocked unconscious an' I think Bo's just about ready to tear the city down around our ears. Eric's tryin' to calm her down..."

Adam jumped easily out of the coffin and took Sookie's hand gently. "Come on, we have to calm her down before we leave... she's sloppy when she's mad."

"**We**?" Sookie gasped as he dragged her up the stairs.

Up in the office, it seemed to Sookie that a dozen things were all happening at once, and there were far too many people talking to keep track of it all. Aldis' small red-headed wife, Nessa, whom Sookie was sure wasn't entirely human, had managed to get Tony Abbott on the phone and Bo was firing off questions at him which he was sleepily trying to answer.

"Bodicea I don't know what to tell you. I hardly know the man!" Abbott's voice said out of the phone's speaker. "I made a commitment to the party, and to myself, that I wouldn't let us end up with the kind of ad-hoc coalition messes they get in Europe, I'd go back to the polls first. I refuse to rely on independents to form government, so I've never bothered profiling them."

"What about the numbers, how are the polls looking?" She demanded.

"Not good to be honest... If I had to bet I'd say we can take it, but it'll be a close run thing." He paused and Sookie thought she could hear him sipping from something. "We've got enough of a swing that I imagine Gillard is exploring coalition options... I know that's not what you want to hear..."

"I'm being told a lot of thing I don't want to hear this week, Mr Abbott. For a lack of good news I'll take the truth every time. What can you tell me about Oakeshott's numbers?"

"I'd have said he was a safe bet. Labor isn't bothering to run it, and the only opposition is a National and those people out there are fiercely independent."

"Shit." Bo hissed.

"Is there something I should know, Sheriff?"

"It's looking like he's involved in this somehow... I'll have more information later in the day. Keep an eye on Gillard, quietly. It might not be a bad idea for you to start working on a statement, in case we have to enact Vanhelsing."

Eric looked at her sharply but Bo waved him off with one hand. "I wont do that Sheriff..." Abbott's voice said firmly. "So put it out of your mind."

"You may not have a choice. I'll do whatever I have too, and you have to be ready. Check the file – all the arrangements have already been made." She sat heavily and looked around the room. Eric was glaring at her. Adam was pacing and nibbling on his thumbnail nervously. Sookie was struggling to breathe normally in all the tension and Aldis was staring hard at his Sheriff, his great shaggy head was shaking from side to side.

"Bodicea, it sounds to me like you're planning some sort of self-sacrificing bullshit." Eric ground out calmly. "Cut it out."

"Stay out of this, Eric."

"Like hell." He grabbed her angrily and threw her against the wall. "You are looking for a reason to throw your self under a fucking bus for a cause!" He roared at her. Aldis started to his feet, snarling, but stopped short of actually interfering. "There's a difference between being willing to die, and looking for a place! Cut the shit Bo, now, or I will chain you in the basement and deal with this myself."

"Oh **now** you're going all macho and forceful!" She practically screeched at him.

Sookie's hand flew to her mouth and her eyes widened as she realised what Bo was implying... Eric didn't miss it either, his hands flexed on Bo's shoulder's painfully for a moment, she made to punch him but he knocked her blow aside easily and grabbed her face. "You think I didn't want to stay with him? You think I..." he growled and thumped her head back against the wall firmly. "Blame me all you want. Perhaps I **should** have locked him up. Perhaps I should have done a lot of things. I have made many life times worth of mistakes, and perhaps everything would be very different now if we had both been braver, but we are where we are. Will you trust someone else to protect Adam?" He loosened his grip on her and let her look over at Adam, who was staring wide-eyed at them and trembling terribly.

"Bo...?" The Overseer said in a tremulous little voice. Sookie's heart broke to look at him, he'd never reminded her more of Godric than he did in that moment... young and broken, as though somehow all his hopes for the world had been dashed.

Adam wasn't entirely sure what he was hearing, or what it meant. He knew Bo was angry about Godric, about him leaving her with this job she didn't want. Angry with Eric for being the one who was there, for not stopping it, for not coming straight to Australia to be with her when she found out... Even in the grips of his own fugue, he'd been aware that she felt that everyone had left her behind.

"I don't know if you've really given up, or if you just want to punish me..." Eric hissed in her ear. "You think we all went on our way and forgot you, little sister, but think on this, _Godric asked me to let him die, and God help me, I did it. No one in all creation has the power to make me let you go._" He said the last in Welsh, his mouth almost touching her ear and his hands still tightly gripping her shoulders.

"C'mon, Sook" Aldis said gently. The huge, misshapen vampire had moved up beside her so quietly that his voice made her jerk violently in surprise. "We take's Adam and we wait outside, yeah?" He nodded at Bo, whose trembling was now even more pronounced than Adam's, and Eric whose face was unreadable. The viking glanced at her once and his eyes asked her understanding... Sookie felt that sickening creep of fear and jealousy as Eric's eyes moved from her and back to Bo but she squashed it down.

"Come on Adam," She said gently, taking the overseer's hand. "we'll have some breakfast together while they sort it out."

"She's miserable..." Adam mumbled. Sookie looked at him sharply, his voice was vague, distant... "She's been miserable this whole time, but she wouldn't say..."

"She'll be OK, Eric will fix it." She said as confidently as she could. When Adam turned to look at her, she gave him a reassuring smile. "You'll see."

"I will," he mumbled. "But she can't... she can't see me at all..."

.

The world was pitching and lurching around him. Winston tried to open his eyes but his stomach churned sickeningly so he closed them resolutely. As his mind slowly processed the last twenty four hours, he started to hyperventilate.

"Shit shit shit," he hissed to himself.

"Just be quiet..." Milton's voice whispered behind him. "Keep your eyes closed and try not to get too excited."

"Not get excited, you're gonna kill my best friend you sick little bastard!"

"Just shut up," clammy hands, slick with sweat, adjusted the ties around Winston's wrists. "Jesus, you've torn yourself to shreds... For once just listen to me. Oakshott is serious shit..."

Instead of answering, Winston concentrated in breathing in and out, and not throwing up. _Bo will come. She'll come with Aldis and Nessa and that big hairy-ass Viking and she'll get me. And you... you stupid ass, you'll be a twitching stain on the carpet when she's done._

.

Sookie gasped and clutched at Adam's hand. "He's awake! Winston's awake!"

"I go tell Boo, yous wait here. Jus' in case." Aldis shuffled out, leaving Sookie with an apple and Adam with a warm true blood, without elaborating. In the office, the huge vampire found his Sheriff and her brother trading helpless looks of frustration and annoyance. "Sookum say little man awake now Boo."

A heartbeat later Bo and Eric were down the hall talking on top of each other, asking Sookie what she'd heard.

"It's mostly jus' more of the same. He's pissed off, he keeps callin' Milton nasty names and Bo's gonna come and kill everyone and save him." She told them.

Bo glanced at Aldis who nodded calmly. "Alright, the sun is safely down, let's go." It was only then that Sookie noticed Bo had changed her outfit. Flat shoes, plain black pants and a heavy black vest covered in pockets. She bristled with knives and, much to Sookie's surprise, with hand guns. "That's a strange face for a yank to make at the sight of a gun."

"It's just... vampires don't usually use them, do they?" Sookie asked carefully.

"Most vampires are stupid traditionalists. I use whatever's appropriate. In fairness... I really feel more like hitting things than shooting them." Bo admitted. She glanced at Adam, who was still completely unarmed. "I don't suppose I could convince you to stay here?"

"I love him too, Bo..." the small man couldn't meet her eyes, but his expression was serious and calm.

"I thought you might feel that way. Stay where Eric and I can see you, and don't take any risks." She glanced at Eric, who didn't look at all happy.

With his own preservation at the forefront of his mind, Eric hadn't forgotten the very real possibility that Adam's existence was necessary for his survival. He'd have felt a lot better if the little man was a bit more stable and a bit less gentle.

"Sookie," Eric held out the leather strip with the vial of his blood on it. "Here..."

"Is that what I think it is?" Bo asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Insurance." Eric said shortly. "You know what to do," he said to Sookie and she nodded, putting the vial around her neck and patting is gently. Next he offered her the knives she'd used at the battle of Bon Temps, she took those as well. "Stay behind us as much as you can. If you can free the boy and run, do it."

"OK..." she agreed weakly.

The trip was uneventful. Sookie, Eric, Aldis and Bo sat in the cargo section of a large black van while Nessa drove. Sookie listened in on Winston's mind as much as possible, but wasn't able to pick up much else. It seemed to her to be a never ending loop of how stupid Milton is, how dead Oakshott was going to be and how big a mess Bo was going to leave.

"They don' seem to know we're comin'" she told them when the van stopped. "At least not that Winston's heard."

"Good." Bo said grimly. "He'll be down in the cellar, it's the only place they could stash him where no one's going to hear him carrying on. Milton knows as well as I do how much noise Winston can make when he's pissed off. In through the doors, around to the right and down. Try to keep human casualties to a minimum, and do not kill the vampire, whoever he is. I want a few questions answered."

"What about the Milton, Boo?" Aldis asked.

The Sheriff met his eyes, and for a moment the intelligence master saw murder on her face. "Don't kill him unless you have too, but if it comes to it, I'm not going to cry for him."

"Sookie, have you heard anything about how many there are?" Eric asked.

Sookie shook her head. "Nothin'. He's thought about Milton and this Oakshott person, but I get the feeling he can't see very much."

"I wish there was some way we could let him know we were coming." Bo said.

"He knows," Sookie said with a little smile. "Trust me, he knows."

Aldis reached through between the front seats and touched Nessa's face gently. "You stay here, hm? You're tricks don' work on dead men..."

She opened her mouth to argue and then closed it again when her huge husband looked her steadily in the eye. "Alright..." She said at last, covering his hand on her face with her own. "Be careful. I love you."

"Love you too, booful." He grinned at her and tapped her chin lightly with one gnarled finger.

The other's left him along for a moment with his wife. Out in the dingy street, Sookie looked up at Eric. "What did he mean? About her gift not working on vampires?"

"Nessa's a Coory. For lack of a better term, she's a sex fairy. To commune with her is to be wiped clean of your sins, or so they say. As a side benefit, men are physically incapable of harming her, but it doesn't work on vampires." Bo told her. "I have no idea how true any of it is, but she does seem to have a way with mortal men."

"But not Aldis?"

Bo laughed softly. "The power she has over him has nothing to do with magic... at least not that kind." She turned to look at Adam, "Are you ready?"

"Yes." Bo looked at him curiously for a moment then nodded.

"Alright." She nodded at the heavy, locked door. "Eric, if you would." The grin on Eric's face was cheeky, conspiratorial and astonishingly young! He quite deliberately lifted one leg, leaned back slightly and destroyed the door and much of the frame with a single, snapping front kick. "Thank you, brother." Bo said regally, without any hint of sarcasm.

Not for the first time, Sookie followed Bo carefully with her eyes, wondering at the woman's wildly swinging moods. She followed along behind, almost running to keep up. Though they weren't exactly using vampire speed, they weren't taking their time either. Just as Bo had said, they found the stairs leading down into the cellar. There was little light, and Sookie stumbled slightly half way down, but Adam caught he elbow and gave her a small smile. "Stay behind me, Sookie." he told her gently. "And don't be afraid."

"I said go and see what it was!" The stopped cold and the harsh, angry voice on the other side of the door.

"It was the the delivery-men with the supplies," Milton's nasal whine answered. "you're a vampire, aren't you supposed to have super human hearing?"

"Milton, you try not sleeping for three days and see how good your hearing is. I'm running a political campaign by day, and learning how to be a vampire by night... it's fucking exhausting. So when I tell you to go check it out, **go and check it out** before I decide to eat you!" Oakshott snarled.

Bo and Eric shared a dark look and then Bo nodded towards the door... once again, Eric flashed her a grin and kicked the door so hard that it shattered into a shower of splinters that rained down on the three very surprised occupants of the small cellar.

Milton screamed and backed into a corner. The tall, lean figure of Oakshott blinked stupidly at them and tied to a chair in the middle of the room Winston sagged noticeably. At the sight of her best friend, bound and bleeding, Bo's nostrils flared and she charged forward. With what little sense he had left, Milton grabbed up a strangely constructed crossbow and fired it blindly at her. Out of it came not a bolt, but a fine silver net. Bo ran straight into it in her rush towards her enemy, and the sick smell of cooking flesh filled the room as she was born to the floor screaming in rage.

"Bo!" Eric, Adam and Winston called together in a strange chorus.

Oakshott pulled himself together enough to grab up a chair and smash it so he could hold one jaggedly broken leg against Bo's chest. "How utterly inconvenient. Milton, remind me to beat you senseless later." He shook his head, more in annoyance than fear. "I told you not to antagonise her, I told you to keep her off balance, so what did you do? What did you do Milton? You stole her little pet, who apparently has a homing devise up his arse."

"I'm going to kill you," Eric said calmly. "Eventually..."

"You wont be able to touch me. Once the election is held, I will be the only logical choice to replace her... once she's safely dead." His muscles bunched, flexed, prepared to strike.

With a strangled cry, Winston threw himself sideways, slamming into Oakshott's side and throwing his aim before anyone else could move. Grunting with the effort, he drove the shaft of wood through the silver netting, burying it deep in Bo's stomach, well clear of her heart. She screamed again, unable to move. Eric snarled and was beside them in a blink, one hand wrapped harshly around Oakshott's neck.

"Stop."

Both Eric and Oakshott dropped to their knee's in instant supplication. Even Bo, restrained and wounded tried the get to her knees. Adam stood still at the foot of the stairs with Sookie half hidden behind him. He stood straighter, his eyes a dull and terrible black. "Eric,"

"My Lord." Eric kept his eyes downcast.

"He must live, to answer for his crimes." There was a coldness to the command and Sookie shrank back from him as he spoke. Eric, however, understood the implication and, very slowly, he turned, took hold of the now trembling Vampire's head and twisted it around until there was a bone-grinding crack. Oakshott screamed as Eric then lifted him easily and tossed him into a corner. "Free Winston."

While Eric was snapping the cable ties that held Winston in place, Adam moved to Bo's side and kneeled. With a grimace of effort, and more stink of burning flesh, he slid his fingers under the silver netting. It took what appeared to be an inhuman effort, but the First vampire lifted the netting slowly and then tossed it aside so that he could take Bodicea gently in his arms.

"Don't do that again..." his voice was once more soft and gentle, he was Adam again.

"When did you start giving orders?" She coughed, blood flecking her lips. "Winston?" She winced, trying to turn in Adam's arms.

"Shh, shh, he's here. He's going to be fine..." Adam helped sit her up so she could see and Winston wriggled his way over, unable to put any weight on his feet or hands.

"A for the entrance and outcome, but you're scraping a C minus for overall execution..." The little man said weakly.

"You look well tenderised," Bo coughed again and lifted her hands which were clutched over the hole in her belly. "Where's Milly?"

"I've got him." Eric stood over Milton's unconscious form. He'd fainted at some point in the proceedings and was snoring slightly. "Mighty warrior..." he rolled his eyes and nudged the lump with his foot, but it only grunted a little. "You're going to need to eat, perhaps it can serve some kind of purpose."

Bo snorted. "I have some standards. I'm not eating that." She shook her head and tried to get up. "Let's get out of here, before the cops show up and we run out of options..." Instead of standing however, her knees gave out and she would have fallen if Adam hadn't caught her. "Damn it."

"Here," Winston held up a bloodied hand and without thinking, Bo reached down to haul him up. "Ouch! Jesus Christ! Don't yank on it you stupid bitch, bite it!"

Bo growled at him. "We've talked about this,"

"No, you talked and I ignored you. Stop being so stupid, I'm going to need to be carried out of here anyway." He held his arm up, his bleeding wrist near her face. "For once in your life just let me help you."

"You're not food! Not now, not ever!"

"Humans give each other blood all the time!"

Eric rolled his eyes. "Take the blood Bodicea. You're being foolish. If I could I'd give you mine... you don't get the monopoly on noble sacrifices."

With a painfully reluctant look, Bo gently took Winston's hand and delicately nipped his wrist. The little man sucked in a breath, but watched in fascination, unable to tear his eyes away. After a moment, Bo wrapped her blood soaked hands around her friends wrists and the strange, soft hiss that accompanied rapid healing sang through her ears as Winston's skin knitted together under her bloody touch.

"That's enough... let's get out of here." She still leaned heavily against Adam, who supported her weight with no apparent effort. Aldis hovered over them protectively, his huge bulk taking up all the space in the stairway, since he had Oakshott slung over one shoulder (screaming and whimpering) and Milton over the other. "I'm alright Aldis..."

"Definition of alright include me not bein' able to see your spine Boo." He drawled. "Dis one smell like sickness." The huge man shifted Milton's weight with a grunt.

"What do you mean?" Winston asked... he didn't look entirely comfortable, resting in Eric's arms and being carried up the stairs.

"Big sickness... his insides all rot."

Winston bit his lip and looked at Milton where he bounced around none too gently on Aldis' shoulder. "He said Oakshott was paying him... but not in money..."

"That explains something's," Eric muttered, deliberately not paying much attention to the fast he was carrying someone.

"You poor, stupid, idiot..." Winston breathed sadly.


	12. 12 We're all Family now

Eric and Aldis both frowned disapprovingly as Adam walked out of the emergency room of Melbourne General Hospital and climbed back into the car.

"Should have killed him." Eric muttered.

"He's going to die delirious with a belly full of morphine, Eric." Bo said with a resigned sigh. She didn't have the energy to fight with him. "Nothing we can do is worse than that."

"I resent not being given the opportunity to try." He sniffed disdainfully. "I think you underestimate my imagination."

"Just let it go dear one. I'm tired, I need to find something to eat – Winston don't even think it" she interjected mid thought when the little man looked to be offering up his arm again. "I need more than you've got to spare anyway. Then I need to talk to Abbott about what the fuck we're going to do now... What do we do with this idiot?"

"For fuck's sake Bo, just kill him. Remove the brain-addled red-head, and be done with it. You over-complicate things."

Bo sighed again and leaned heavily against Adam's side. The Overseer had one lithely muscular arm wrapped around her shoulders and was resting his cheek against her hair. He had hardly spoken since they left the basement, content to simply carry Bo and follow directions. None of the others had mentioned the change which had come over him, nor his inexplicable return to normal...

"You know I wont do that Eric, so stop aggravating everything with suggestions you know I can't follow. I'll talk to Abbott, we'll sort it out. You don't have to stay if the way I do business vexes you so much." She turned her face so her cheek touched Adam's neck and closed her eyes.

"If that's what you want." Eric said stiffly.

Sookie shook her head and put her hand on Eric's knee, "Why are you bein' such an ass, you know you don' wonna go and she's not askin' you to leave. What's gotten into you?"

"Nothing."

"Bullshit. C'mon, don't start this again, talk to me." She looked up at his face, dark and moody as it was, and worried everything might backslide terribly if it kept going this way.

With noticeable effort, Eric put his hand over hers and squeezed it gently. "I'm fine..." he said quietly, "just tired."

Sookie could see that was a load of crap, but she shuffled a little closer to him and let him put an arm around her rather than arguing. She looked down at the bound and gagged figure of Robert Oakshott, whose skin steamed and hissed slightly where she'd wrapped silver around him to keep him still. "What did he think he was doin'?" She asked quietly.

"Who knows? I think he's cracked." Bo said without opening her eyes.

"He thought he'd replace you, you know, if you died." Winston said. "He said he was the 'logical' choice."

"...then he's completely nuts. He's a baby. No one would allow anyone that young to become a sheriff, certainly not sheriff _**here**_. I've already made all the arrangements for my replacement anyway." She looked down at their captive. "You've gone to a lot of effort for a fantasy that could never work Mr Oakshott."

"Who'se going to replace you?" Winston asked.

Bo said nothing but glanced at the front passenger seat, and the back of Aldis' massive and deformed head. Winston raised an eyebrow and mouthed '_really?_' silently. "You know as well as anyone that the outside is irrelevant. He's smart, loyal, honourable and he understands what we're doing here. I know I can trust him to do the right thing, and to keep you out of trouble." She added with a smile. When Winston looked surprised she shook her head and gazed at him affectionately. "Don't worry little brother... no matter what happens to me, I've made sure you'll always be taken care of." This did not make Winston smile, he just lurched from his seat across the van to sit beside her and burrow under her arm so he could hold her. Bo winced but said nothing.

"Is nearly home Boo." Aldis said from the front seat. "don' try to lift stupid man, yeah. I come get him. You carry Boo, Lord-man?"

"I've got her..." Adam said over Bo's immediate protestation. "Will you bring Winston in please, Eric?"

It wasn't an order, and Eric felt none of the aggressive compulsion to obey that had driven him to his knees in the basement an hour earlier. Whatever that had been, it seemed to be gone for the moment. Still, Eric nodded without complaint and once Adam had lifted Bo gently from the car and was carrying her inside, the huge viking looked down at his human charge. Winston looked back up at him, weary and overwrought. After a long pause, Eric shook his head and leaned over to scoop Winston up in his arms, "come along little brother," he said lightly, and Winston blinked in confusion but said nothing as Eric carried him inside. "I expect you're going to be on a short leash for the foreseeable future. If you spend more than ten minutes out of her sight, she's likely to start tearing the place apart looking for you."

"Fuck... I hadn't thought of that."

"_Hey Sook, how's it goin'_?" Sookie smiled to hear her brother's voice. She'd called to check in, amazing that so much could have happened since the last time they spoke.

"It's good, I mean, things here were in a bit of a state, but I think we're more or less on top of it now. How 'bout you? How's the clean up goin'?"

"_Done an' dusted. Vampers clean faster 'an Gran after a double shot o' espresso. Some folks din' come back... Andy thinks they was more ashamed after Terry's speech than anything... better off without 'em._"

"Oh... well, yeah I guess. Still seems sad though." Sookie sighed.

"_We'll get by jus' fine. Oh ah, you know that Pam woman? Eric's friend? She's goin' kinda crazy over here. Visits at least once a night, wantin' to know if I heard from you an' Eric at all... might wonna get him to call her. She got those 'woman crazy eyes' you know? Might come home and find all his shit shredded if he aint careful._"

"I'll tell him," She promised. "How are _**you **_doin'?"

"_Oh you know, can't complain... It's weird Sook, with you gone, seems like people jus' kinda assume I'm in charge. I mean, there aint no one to fight no more, but they're still comin' round askin' for opinions and stuff. Half the time I don' even get what the problem is, but they seem to think askin' me'll get 'em somewhere..._"

"You were a huge part of savin' their town Jason! They've seen how brave you are, how much you care about them. That matters to folks, you know? Besides, I don' think they really need help with anythin' really, sometimes people jus' like to talk their shit out, an' they trust you to listen."

"_Wow... I never thought about it like that. So... it's OK that I don' really know what I'm doin'?_"

"It's fine Jason, I trust you too."

"_Hey Sook...?_"

"Yeah?"

"_I love you... you come back soon, OK?_"

"I love you too Jason, an' I'll be back soon as I can."

Sookie was still smiling as she hung up. When she turned around to put her phone back in her bag, Eric was leaning against the door frame watching her. "All's well at home?"

"Yeah, yeah he's doin' just fine. I worry about him, you know? He's got a good heart but does thing 'for he's really thought about 'em."

"Don't we all..." He moved into the room and somewhat gingerly slipped his arms around her waist as though unsure how the gesture would be received. "I am... sorry, this has been very hard on you."

"Been hard on you too, I think." She leaned in against his chest and looked up at him. "You wonna tell me what that was about in the car? You were lookin' for a reason to get angry with her..."

Eric sighed and rested his chin on top of her head so he could pull her closer. "She's not just mine anymore. Sharing her affection with Godric was nothing, it was natural, and he encouraged her to drop everything should I call... this will not be the same."

"You love her very much..."

"She's constant. When you live for a centuries, very little is stable, endures. Bodicea endures. People change, Godric did, I have, everyone... except Bo. I look at her now and she is almost indistinguishable from the woman who crawled from the earth in Godric's arms. She has been my constant..." he kissed the top of her head and gave her a small smile. "The world seems... unstable."

"Everyone grows up eventually." Sookie smiled.

"You think she's finally grown up?"

"No... I think_**you**_have."

Bo sat with her back against the arm of the couch, her legs stretched out and her feet in Winston's lap, who was sitting opposite her, his bare feet on her thighs. He rubbed the soles of her feet gently and avoided looking at her, as she sliced the pad of her thumb open and ran the wound gently of the ripped and raw skin above his ankles where he'd struggled against his bonds.

"True Blood for you," Adam said as he placed a warmed bottle on the coffee table when Bo could reach it, "and a triple shot strawberry daiquiri for you." He stood, watching them carefully while the skin on Winston's legs made the strange hissing noise that so often accompanied rapid healing, and Bo watched with a tender expression as the last evidence of his captivity disappeared.

"I, ah... I'm gonna go get some sleep." Winston said after a short uncomfortable silence. He got to his feet and hurried off, only to come back and scoop up his drink. "Can't forget you... night my lovelies."

"Winston..." he stopped and looked back at her. "I love you..."

The thin little man smiled and blew her a flamboyant kiss. "And I love you, my scary Queen of the night. Always." Then he flounced out of the room, taking a deep swig of his incredibly alcoholic drink.

Bo lifted her legs and allowed Adam to settle on the couch before putting her feet in his lap. He lay one hand over them gently and stared off into the distance. "Do you think he's really OK?" he asked after a while.

"Winston? He will be..." She smiled, her eyes slightly pink tinged with tears she kept tightly under control. "I believe what Sookie heard... he never lost faith in me. He knew I was coming... I have to make sure I never let him down."

"I don't think you can. You're too good..." He glanced sideways at her, his large dark eyes slightly haunted. "Are you ever going to ask me?"

"About the basement? No... it's not my place."

"If not yours, then whose? Who else will check up on me if not you?" He bit his lip and looked away.

"You don't need checking up on any more, Adam. You've proven that. You're ready." Adam shook his head and swallowed hard. "You don't need me any more."

"I'll always need you," he said softly, his hand tightening around her ankle.

"Why...?"

"You know why... you just don't want to say it."

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Maybe that's true... but if it is, it's only because what I want is to hear you say it..."


End file.
